Elusive Bird in Hand

I painted this almost more than two years ago, while I was taking a course on Theology of Disabilities at Duke Divinity School. 

At the time, I wanted to visually represent a scene of the crucifixion not often in people's imaginations, one of tenderness in Christ's suffering.  A small bird gently resting in Jesus' hands, which is sign of the bird's tenderness and Jesus who receives and returns that tenderness to a small gentle creature while suffering on the cross.


This image is part of series that I painted based on imagery and feelings stirred up by the poetry of Vassar Miller. 

Life in Community

It's hard to name what spirituality looks like in the daily life of a L'Arche home.  Somehow God's love is present as we do dishes, hang out, eat dinner, and pray after meals.  How do I find the presence of God in the small moments of community life?  Sometimes I don't have to "find" God at all, and remember that God is already here among out midst. 

God help me to open to your love in the everyday.  May I love more deeply and fully without judgment or fear.  Amen.

Vocation

The word vocation comes from the Latin verb vocare, which means to call.  The term vocation was mainly used by Christians to refer to God's call on an individual, or to a community of people; vocation is now used more in the secular sense to refer to one's occupation.

This past weekend, I shared with a group of Duke undergrads, who are living in community for the summer, my journey into L'Arche and how it helped me to figure out God's call upon my life.  I tried to convey to the students that I see my vocation as a call or an invitation to a certain way of life, or a way of being.  


When I initially lived at L'Arche Daybreak for 10 weeks two summers ago, I knew that I was not done with L'Arche.  That summer at Dybreak helped me let go of false identities and false images of God, and helped me be more open to my brothers and sisters with intellectual disabilities, and those who are defined by our culture as "non-normative."  I also encountered the God of mystery, one that I did not know, and God that was beyond my human understanding.  

I have been at L'Arche DC for three weeks now.  I am still trying to be open to how the Holy Spirit is working in my life and trying to open my heart-mind bit by bit.  My mind initially resisted community life here by comparing L'Arche DC to Daybreak.  I realize now that I have to hold my experiences in Canada gently, so I do not idealize them to the point that they become a hindrance to living out my life here and now at a different L'Arche community.    


I would like to close with a quote from Jean Vanier's Community and Growth:


To grow in love is to try each day to welcome, and to be attentive and caring for those whom we have the greatest difficulty; with our 'enemies'; those who are the poorest, the oldest, the weakest, the most demanding, the most ailing; those who are the most marginal in our community, who have the most difficulty conforming to the rules; and finally those who are the youngest.


If people are faithful to these four priorities of love then the community as a whole will be an oasis of love.