It is Sunday and, guess what! This morning I was listening to the NPR program “On Being” which today was a 2007 interview with philosopher, theologian and humanitarian, Jean Vanier. The title of the program was “The Wisdom of Tenderness” which challenged me to continue my search for a better understanding of ontology.
Ontology may or may not be a familiar word to many although it is a common term to those who study metaphysics. Well, mercy me, another word we do not use in everyday language and, yet, all of us are daily concerned with gaining some understanding of the world and a common language for sharing idea about such concepts of space, time, cause, effect, possibility, and existence. That is the study of metaphysics. Ontology is that branch or area of metaphysics concerned with the nature or categories of being and how they relate to each other. Many of us have and continue to ask what it means for us to be present in the world without being lost in it. Whether or not we have read Aristotle or the writing of other philosophers, we have probably asked very metaphysical questions since we were a small child. Sadly some of us were taught at a very early age that we were not to ask why questions. Anyone who has been around a young toddler will have grown tired at some point of the “why” questions. Yet, at some level, until we are beaten into numbness, which is the opposite of being present, we will continue to ask questions such as: Why? What is our purpose? How can I be enough? Am I loved or can I be loved for just being me? How do we relate to the rest of the universe or even to other universes?
We humans seem to long to be connected and, yet, we often learn that the only safe route through this life journey is to be disconnected. From this place of dis-connectedness we search for reassurance we can be loved and, if not loved, admired. We may built empires, accumulate accolades for good deeds, amass huge bank accounts which we can tract from inside our prestigious houses or places of abode and, yet, continue to feel a profound sense of loneliness. Some of us discovered that drugs, alcohol, sex, power or even religion can be a temporary way to numb out while seeming to experience something we call pleasure. Yet, this is not the pleasure the pleasure to which Aristotle referred. Jean Vanier says that for Aristotle pleasure was the fulfillment from a job well done. (NPR Radio interview with Krista Tippett on the program “On Being”.)
Jean Vanier is the Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian who founded L’Arche. If one goggles L’Archeusa. org one finds the following:
Who We Are
The secret of L’Arche is relationship: meeting people, not through the filters of certitudes, ideologies, idealism or judgments, but heart to heart; listening to people with their pain, their joy, their hope, their history, listening to their heart beats. – Jean Vanier, L’Arche founder
Called by the late Pope John Paul II a “providential seed of the civilization of love,” L’Arche is a sign of hope in a divided world.
L’Arche enables people with and without disabilities to share their lives in communities of faith and friendship. Community members are transformed through relationships of mutuality, respect, and companionship as they live, work, pray, and play together.
Some, visiting L’Arche or even thinking about visiting a community in which those with and without disabilities might find themselves thinking of doing something for the people one might find in such a community. Many of us have had the experience of volunteering to help or serve those “less fortunate” those ourselves. Sadly, when we set out to do for someone we miss the opportunity to be in relationships with them. We might be thinking, “How can I be with someone with whom I cannot have a real conversation? How can I be with someone who has nothing to teach me or who can give nothing back?
Jean Vanier again reminds us that for Aristotle desire and pleasure were the heart of everything. Mr. Vanier asserts that we desire to be loved. We might settle for admiration, which leaves us on a pedestal, but we desire love. We want to be appreciated for who we are. We want to know that another could know our deepest, darkest, most vulnerable parts and still be loved. We want what Jean Vanier called safe love. I think of safe love, as that love which is offered as a sacred equal- a love, which demands nothing or takes nothing, which is not offered. Too often these days we think of safe love being the opposite of sexual abuse, but, in reality, unsafe love (an oxymoron) is any false love. False love is pretending to accept us for us whether it is in a business relationship, a romantic relationship, or any other type of relationship. False love is about my needs and never about your needs or your person. False love says, “What about me, me, me…” Now we know at that the base of false love is a deep need to be truly loved but the person offering that is too damaged or frightened to just be present.
For anyone who has truly been with a person who is disabled or differently abled mentally, emotionally, developmentally or intellectually, one knows that very often that person extends love without question. They want to touch and be touched. Krista Tippett says that when she visited an L’Arche community she was hugged more than she is normally hugged. If one wants to witness the love that Jesus and the Buddha taught us; the love that Mother Theresa taught, one only has to take the risk of being with a person who has been labeled as mentally or otherwise disabled. As one of my teachers, Pema Chodron reminds us, if one wants to know ourselves we have to be with our own vulnerability. We have to be with our own pain and fear. Perhaps part of our fear is being emotionally, mentally, intellectually or physically disabled/differently abled.
In the interview with Krista Tippett, Mr. Vanier talked about the teaching of Martin Luther King. He says:
“His question was always, how is it that one group — the white group — can despise another group, which is the black group? And will it always be like this? Will we always be having an elite condemning or pushing down others that they consider not worthy? And he says something, which is quite, what I find extremely beautiful and strong, is that we will continue to despise people until we have recognized, loved, and accepted what is despicable in ourselves. So that, then we go down, what is it that is despicable in ourselves? And there are some elements despicable in ourselves, which we don't want to look at, but which are part of our natures, that we are mortal.”
So that it is it isn’t it. Have you, the reader, noticed, that we seem to keep finding different roads which lead us to the same conclusion. If we want peace we must first make peace with our own humanness. We must do this with extreme tenderness. It is not surprising that the title of the program in which Ms. Tipppett interviewed Mr. Vanier was “The Wisdom of Tenderness”. In the L’Arche communities that is exactly what one finds - extreme, tenderness freely offered without any shields for one’s human vulnerabilities.
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