It's all backwards

Today I was listening to a podcast from MPR's "Speaking of Faith". In this podcast Krista Tippett went to a L'Arche community in Iowa. L'Arche communities are places where people with mental disabilities can live in community with staff that help them. It was started by a man by the name of Jean Vanier. If you want to know more about the community or find the podcast click here. 

I was in tears as I listened to voices of people who loved in ordinary ways, but loved with the purity of a child, that many of us would find hard to do.

In the book "The world lit only by fire", the author stated that Magellan's father was great man, but not a great father. I have read that many times in the lives of other famous people. It made me wonder what it was about society that rewarded a person for things that would hurt those closest to them. 

Listening to the podcast the philosophy of L'Arche was backwards to the way we have been socialized. The hierarchy was that the "disabled" were the core residents and that the "abled" were their assistants. Vanier talked at length about what the residents could teach us, that he had learned so much from them. He stated that being human wasn't how much you knew, but how much you loved.

I am slowly starting to understand in the most basic ways what Jesus was saying. It is as if I haven't seen it until now, and even then only through a glass darkly. Jesus' life was a testament to the ideology that everything is backwards. What we think gets us ahead, most often puts us behind. And we only realize that if we are willing to stop and listen to the gentlest among us.