The Transforming Power of Vulnerability

The Wounded Heart and the Transfigured Heart

Before entering into each of these three themes, I wish to reflect for a moment on the link between vulnerability, disability, and the human condition. Vulnerability is intrinsic to the person with a disability: there is a neuro-biological difference and a dependency of the person in terms of care. Equally, vulnerability is intrinsic to our humanity: the human person is contingent and inter-dependent: we are born in a state of total dependency and will die in a state of radical vulnerability. I would like to evoke two contrasting symbols of this vulnerability, and the transformative logic of the human heart, with the help of one of our great national poets, W.B. Yeats. First, there is the symbol of what I call ‘the wounded heart,’ epitomized for Yeats as ‘the foul rag and bone shop of the heart,’ a place of pain, isolation, and bleary-eyed decay. It is where, in Yeats’s words, ‘all the ladders start’ and to which we all ‘go down’ at some time or another. ² It is part of our human condition. Secondly, there is the symbol of what I call ‘the transfigured heart,’ which Yeats termed ‘unity of being’ and which is beautifully embodied by him in the image of the dancer, in perfect harmony with the dance:

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance

How can we tell the dancer from the dance! ³

Yeats understood that we need both hearts—the wounded heart and the transfigured one—in order to be fully human, and that we need to ‘descend’ the ladder of our broken humanity in order to ‘ascend’ to the ‘unity of being’ of our humanity at its best. The two hearts need each other. ‘The wounded heart’ on its own leads to depression, isolation, and despair. ‘The transfigured heart’ on its own leads to a bliss that is Utopian. Together, they embody both our radical vulnerability and our extra-ordinary capacity for transformation, transcendence, and growth.

My experience of working with people with intellectual disabilities over the past 30 years is that when they are welcomed and valued for who they are as a person, and given a valid place in their family, community, and society, then their gifts can blossom and flourish and enormous growth and transformation are possible, both for them and for others. Equally, my experience has shown that when the person with a disability is not welcomed and valued for who they are as a person but are ‘excluded’ or ‘rejected’ or discriminated against because of their disability or difference, their growth and development are stunted and they can experience great isolation and pain.

I want to share a story with you, which illustrates this. It was told to me by a friend of mine, Fr Gabriel Pippinato, an Italian priest who works in Kenya in Africa, and it’s the story of a man called Thomas with an intellectual disability. Gabriel was asked to bless the home and farm of one of the families in his parish. Having blessed the home and the animals (as is the tradition in Africa), he noticed a room in the house which he had not been invited to enter and bless, and heard a strange noise coming from it. When he opened the door, his nostrils were assaulted by the stench of human excrement and he made out the shape of a human being, lying naked on the floor. He asked the lady of the house who this person was. She replied: ‘He is my son, but he is not part of the family.’ Gabriel asked if he could bless her son, and she reluctantly agreed. In many Africa cultures, disability is seen as a ‘curse’ from God and the child with a disability is often rejected as a result. He was given the name ‘Thomas’ and a number of weeks later he died. Gabriel was so deeply touched by the isolation and inhumanity of Thomas’s condition that he resolved to do something about it. His subsequent research showed that there were many such stories in the area where he worked, and so he decided to establish a community to reach out to the many people with disabilities like Thomas, to support them at home, and to welcome them where conditions at home were intolerable. This community, which I have visited several times, is called St Martins; it is a direct response to the cry of people with disabilities in Africa today, and is a real inspiration and a sign of hope.

The temptation would be to think that the story of Thomas is an exception, and that, generally, people with disabilities are well integrated and supported in society today. While progress has certainly been made in many Western countries in this regard, there are still many disabled persons, like Thomas, out there, not just in the majority of the developing world but also in our own developed societies. Their cry is a cry for relationship, for friendship, for community, and it arises from the reality of their experience of isolation and of loneliness. Their cry takes the form of a question: ‘Will you be my friend?’ This is the question which we are now going to explore.

‘Will You Be My Friend?’: The Cry for Relationship

In an interview with Donie Hurley, a long-term member with a disability of my L’Arche community in Cork, in my book A Prophetic Cry, I asked him what, for him, was the secret to being happy and contented as a person. He replied: ‘It’s about having friends. Here in Cork and in Dublin and in Kilkenny, and other places all over the world.’ ⁴ Happiness and human fulfilment, for Donie, as for the vast majority of people with intellectual disabilities—and I would say for human beings generally—is ‘about having friends,’ which I read as meaningful human relationships. This cry for friendship was one of great discoveries made by Jean Vanier, the founder of L’Arche, when he began to visit a large psychiatric institution for people with disabilities in Clermont, not far from Paris, in the early 1960s. These visits changed his life. He was deeply touched by the pain and loneliness of these people with intellectual disabilities locked up behind closed doors and herded together in large numbers without the possibility of living meaningful relationships. He was also touched by their simplicity, spontaneity, and gentleness. Their question to Jean was not, ‘Will you be my doctor?’ or ‘Will you be my nurse?’ for they had these professional relationships already, to a certain extent. It was, rather, ‘Will you be my friend?’ And so, L’Arche began as a response, as an answer to this question. Jean invited Philippe, Raphael, and Dany—three men with an intellectual disability—to ‘share life’ with him in an ordinary house in a small village in France, called Trosly-Breuil, in 1964. His intention was not just to care for them or to work on their behalf, but to share daily life with them in a family-style community home. And home, as we know, is where the heart is, where we can be ‘ourselves.’ What he discovered in sharing life with them, and really listening to them, was that they didn’t primarily want his care but rather his friendship. The Eureka moment came for Jean after a year or two of shared community life, when he realized that not only were his friends with a disability growing and blossoming, but so was he (!), and this so especially on the level of the heart, in terms of his own humanity. In some way, he was becoming more human, and more compassionate, thanks to the friendship and care that they were calling forth in him. In many ways, Philippe and Raphael were his teachers in this transformative logic of the heart. Just as he was calling forth the ‘adult’ in them, by treating them as adults and by teaching them to cook and clean around the house, and to grow in independence, equally, they were calling forth the ‘child’ in him, through their simplicity, their warmth, and their indomitable spirit of mischief and fun. He found that they were laughing together a lot! Something in his heart was being softened and expanded through his daily encounters and interactions with them. The transformation was mutual! Of course, they got on each other’s nerves and annoyed each other from time to time (as is the case in family life, generally), but what was significant was that their relationship with each other was meaningful and real. It was not a relationship of Subject to Object, or simply of Care-giver to Client (in which the person with a disability is an object of charity or care) but one of Subject to Subject, of Person to Person, marked by a sense of mutual trust and respect. ⁵ This ‘mutuality’ of both giving and receiving is intrinsic to all true friendship and to authentic human relationships. Jean discovered that the secret of L’Arche was this ‘mutuality’ of relationship, which through the encounters of daily life enabled an inner transformation to take place, not just in the people with disabilities but, equally, within him, and within the ‘assistants,’ whose role was to support them and to care for them. Transformation for Jean Vanier was the message of Jesus. It was closely linked to ‘wonder’: ‘You tell me your story. I listen to you. I come to know your name and your suffering. It is at this point that a communion of hearts occurs, when I become vulnerable to you. There is no more superior and inferior. We are bound together in a covenant. My heart is transformed. This is a moment of wonder.’ ⁶

When we are welcomed for who we are, and ‘listened to’ with respect, then the miracle of the heart’s transformation can, and does, happen. This transformation is a healing process, which marks the passage from the ‘wounded heart’ of a broken self-image—not just of the people with disabilities but also of their assistants—to the ‘transfigured heart’ of a renewed and more positive self-image. The originality of L’Arche is that it combines ‘care’ and ‘mutuality,’ a high quality service delivery with an experience of mutual relationship and friendship. This was not something Jean Vanier had as a ‘blueprint’ when he founded L’Arche. It was something he discovered by really ‘listening’ to Philippe and Raphael and the many other people with a disability, and their assistants, whom he welcomed not just into his community, but into his life.

This cry for friendship and for meaningful relationship is not just true of people with disabilities in the 1960s, when Jean Vanier founded L’Arche, but is equally relevant today as witnessed in the recent ‘Declaration of People with Down’s Syndrome,’ formally adopted during the World Down Syndrome Congress in Capetown, South Africa, in August 2012:

We want to have relationships, and to deal with issues like everyone else … We want to be respected by our friends … we want support to communicate with people outside our group, and to organize events with our friends. ⁷

The Transforming Power of ‘I’m Sorry’

When I utter the words ‘I’m sorry,’ I make myself vulnerable on a human level as I cannot guarantee the outcome or be certain of an affirmative response which says ‘I forgive you.’ Yet, when forgiveness is asked for, and received, it can be a powerfully transformative and healing experience.

My father was my first teacher in forgiveness. I was about 16 years old at the time, and my family were on holiday in beautiful West Cork on the south-west coast of Ireland, close to the sea. As we all sat at dinner one evening, my father and I had a major altercation and ended up on our feet, looking each other in the eye. My father told me that I was ‘a cheeky pup’ (in retrospect, I would say that he was not far off the mark!) and gave me a clip on the ear. I was on the point of hitting him back but I resisted that instinct, turned my back on him, and left the house, banging the door behind me. I walked over the hill by the sea to a farm in the neighbourhood, where Mary, the farmer’s wife, gave me a drink(a glass of whisky) and listened to my tale of woe. ‘Never let the sun set on your anger,’ she told me, ‘Go back, and make it up with your father tonight!’ So, back I went to my father’s house, where my mother was anxiously waiting at the door as darkness drew in. ‘He is waiting for you in our bedroom,’ she said. I went to the bedroom and opened the door, in anticipation of having the riot act read out to me for my unruly behaviour. I remember the vulnerability of that moment. He was sitting up in his bed, reading a book, and as soon as he saw me he opened his arms wide and drew me to himself and gave me a huge bear-like hug with the words: ‘I am sorry for hitting you, Tim, forgive me.’ He was asking me for forgiveness, whereas I was the one who had been on the point of asking him for it. I was deeply touched by his words and disarmed by this gesture, and, from that moment on, I knew with certitude that my father loved me. He was a shy man and did not show his affections easily. This moment of forgiveness was a turning point in our relationship, a defining moment of transformation and healing, which deepened the bond between us. Of course, since then my understanding of forgiveness has deepened and grown, and I am much more aware today of how forgiveness is a process, and can often take time. Yet, there was a wisdom in the advice that I received that evening to go back home to face my father, and the fruit of that encounter was a gift that remains with me to this day.

Another great teacher of forgiveness in my life was a man with a profound physical and intellectual disability called Loic Profit, a Frenchman that I lived with for a year in the L’Arche community of Trosly-Brueil. Loic quickly bestowed on me the gift of his trust, on my arrival in his home, La Forestière, and our relationship deepened and grew both in care and in friendship during that year. The following year, although I was no longer in his home, I brought him to Galway (Ireland) that summer as part of a holiday group of about 10 people. We had a good couple of weeks, but afterwards I felt guilty that I had not been more present to Loic and more patient with him. I had spent my free time, often late into the night, with a lovely Dutch girl I fancied and who was one of the assistants in my team. My heart was much more attentive to her than it was to Loic during those few weeks in Ireland, if I am to be honest about it. But with my late nights and lack of sleep, I was much more grumpy and impatient with my friend, Loic, than I would normally have been. Some years later as I visited Loic in his home in Trosly, we sat together on the carpeted floor of the oratory in La Forestière and I said to him: ‘I’m sorry, Loic, for my lack of patience and presence, when we were on holiday together in Ireland.’ Though he couldn’t speak, Loic knew exactly what I was saying, and he lifted his hand to my cheek and looked me in the eye. I knew at that moment by the way he looked at me that I was forgiven, utterly and unconditionally. I burst into tears, and we embraced in silence. That moment cemented the bond of friendship between us for life, and every time I return to visit him in his home—now many years later—our relationship is as strong as ever. Forgiveness has a tremendous power to heal and to transform wounded hearts and broken relationships, and it is born from the crucible of vulnerability. It is a way of practising goodness towards others, who have been unfair to us, starting from childhood, through adolescence, and into adulthood, and beyond. This practice of goodness in face of injustice can help and heal one, psychologically and spiritually. It can give a meaning to life and a sense of hope. Robert Enright, an American psychologist, has done research in this area and shown, through 12 published empirical studies, that, as a result of the experience and practice of forgiveness, people can expect lower anxiety, lower anger, lower depression, a greater self-esteem, and healthier relationships. Little wonder that Christ replied to Peter when Peter asked him if he should forgive up to seven times: ‘I tell you, not seven times but seventy times seven’ (Matt 18:22). My own examples above are very small ones compared to the very great or dramatic ones that may arise after violence, trauma, and war. But whether the fault is great or small, forgiveness remains one of the most transformative values of the Gospel of Christ.

‘At the Still Point of the Turning World’: Prayer as Mutual Vulnerability

Thirdly, I wish to speak about the vulnerability of prayer, as an experience of interior transformation. When I speak here about prayer, I am not talking about ‘saying prayers’ in the external sense, but rather about an interior experience of ‘encounter’ with a God not of power, but of vulnerability. I use the term ‘God of vulnerability’ as used by Bonhoeffer, Etty Hillesum, and Levinas, a God who does not impose upon us but a God who ‘waits’: ‘I stand at the door and knock, And whoever hears my voice and opens the door, I will come and eat with him, and him with me’ (Rev 3:20). These are the words of a God, who does not impose but who waits for our ‘yes’ of consent, our ‘yes’ of hospitality and welcome. It is a God, not of power, but of littleness, who respects our freedom and our unique ‘otherness.’ ‘Be still, and know, that I am God,’ as the psalmist says. As we know, the journey into stillness is not easy. It entails that ‘downward’ journey—that kenosis—from the ‘head’ to the ‘heart,’ down, to quote Yeats again, to ‘where all the ladders start … to the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.’ To stay in that place of inner pain, that place of the ‘wounded heart,’ is a challenge. Yet, the paradox is that it is precisely there, in mutual vulnerability, that we encounter the mysterious ‘Other,’ and it is there that the inner dance of transformation occurs, which enables us to ‘ascend’ to ‘unity of being,’ to the peace and joy of communion and of the ‘transfigured heart’—‘O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / how can we know the dancer from the dance!’ I am reminded of the words of T.S. Eliot in the Four Quartets: ‘At the still-point of the turning world … there the dance is.’ ⁸ This dance of mutual vulnerability and consent is beautifully illustrated for me in a prayer, articulated by a friend of mine called Danny, a man with an intellectual disability, as recorded by Henri Nouwen in his book The Road to Daybreak:

Tonight I spent a wonderful evening with the L’Arche group from Cork, Ireland, who are spending the month of August in Trosly. It is obviously easier for me to be among the Irish than among the French. The language helps, but also the easy camaraderie.

During evening prayer we sang simple songs, we listened to Danny, one of the handicapped men from Cork, who, with great difficulty, read from Jean Vanier’s book, I meet Jesus, and we prayed. Danny said: ‘I love you, Jesus, I do not reject you even when I get nervous once in a while … even when I get confused. I love you with my arms, my legs, my head, my heart; I love you and I do not reject you, Jesus. I know that you love me, that you love me so much. I love you too, Jesus.’ As he prayed, I looked at his beautiful, gentle face and saw without any veil or cover his agony as well as his love. Who would not respond to a prayer like that?

I suddenly felt a deep desire to invite all my students from Harvard to sit with me there in that circle. I felt a deep love for all those men and women I had tried to speak to about Jesus and had often failed to reach. I wanted so much for all of them to sit and let Danny tell them about Jesus. I knew they would understand what I had not been able to explain. ⁹

My experience has been that Danny, and other people with disabilities like him, can have a prophetic voice in situations like the one described above. Like all prophets, Danny calls us to change and to grow, and to allow our ‘hearts of stone’ to be changed into ‘hearts of flesh.’ The practice of prayer, as an experience of vulnerability and encounter, enables this interior transformation to happen.

This movement from control to vulnerability and intimacy is also illustrated in the story of Peter and Jesus and the washing of the feet in John’s gospel. Peter replies to Jesus’ invitation to wash his feet with the words: ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet? … Never! You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus replies: ‘If I do not wash you, you can have no share with me’ (John 13:9). Peter does not want to ‘let go’ of control and is resisting the vulnerability of having his feet washed, of Jesus touching and cleaning that part of him which is ‘little’ and ‘low.’ He is also resisting the change he is witnessing in his own lord and master, Jesus, who is marking the transition from a strong and victorious Messiah to a vulnerable and humble Messiah (pre-figuring his upcoming crucifixion), getting down on his knees to wash his disciples’ feet in a gesture of intimacy and friendship. Peter is terrified of this experience of mutual vulnerability, and yet, it is only through this experience of communion that he will be able to make the passage from ‘discipleship’ to ‘friendship,’ from ‘doing for’ Jesus as the strong Messiah to ‘being with’ Jesus as a God of intimacy and vulnerability. It is because he is open to this passage that Jesus can afterwards declare to him and to the other disciples: ‘I shall no longer call you servants … I call you friends’ (John 15:15). This moment of communion through the washing of the feet is one of the defining moments of Christianity, which reveals the intimacy at the heart of transcendence. It is the same intimacy, which is at the heart of the experience of prayer as an ‘interior’ encounter, leading to a transformation of the self in, and through, the Other.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let me say, on the basis of my own work and experience in L’Arche over the past 30 years, that I firmly believe in, and affirm, the transforming power of vulnerability—both in the lives of people with disabilities and in the life of humanity, generally. I believe that, if included and given a chance, people with a disability have a huge contribution to make to society, and that we can all be enriched and transformed by their gifts and by their qualities, especially if we are willing to enter into a personal relationship with them, and be open to their invitation: ‘Will you be my friend?’ The Charter of L’Arche puts it well:

Whatever their gifts or limitations, people are bound together in a common humanity. Everyone is of unique and sacred value, and everyone has the same dignity and the same rights. The fundamental rights of each person include the rights to life, to care, to a home, to education and to work. Also, since the deepest need of each person is to love and to be loved, each person has a right to friendship, to communion, and to a spiritual life.

If human beings are to develop their abilities and talents to the full, realizing all their potential as individuals, they need an environment that fosters personal growth. They need to form relationships with others within families and communities. They need to live in an atmosphere of trust, security and mutual affection. They need to be valued, accepted and supported in real and warm relationships.

People with an intellectual disability often possess qualities of welcome, wonderment, spontaneity and directness. They are able to touch hearts and to call others to unity through their simplicity and vulnerability.

Weakness and vulnerability in a person, far from being an obstacle to union with God, can foster it. It is often through weakness, recognized and accepted, that the liberating love of God is revealed. ¹⁰

We can be proud of the many achievements of people with disabilities, not only their visible and public ones, as witnessed in the Special Olympics in Dublin in 2003, which caught the imagination of the whole country of Ireland but, equally, in the less public and visible ones which occur, on the level of the heart, every day of the year, and are witnessed by families, within services and by individuals both in Ireland and throughout the world. Here is a poem by one such individual, who shares what he witnessed with regard to an 11-year-old girl with a disability, called Rita, on a school bus in Dublin some years ago. The poem is called ‘For Rita with Love,’ and the poet is Pat Ingoldsby:

You came home from school

on a special bus

full of people

who look like you

and love like you

and you met me

for the first time

and you loved me.

You love everyone

so much it’s not safe

to let you out alone.

Eleven years of love

and trust and time for you to learn

that you can’t go on living like this.

Unless you are stopped

You will embrace every person you see.

Normal people don’t do that.

Some normal people will hurt you

Very badly because you do.

Cripples don’t look nice

But you embrace them.

You kissed a wino on the bus

And he broke down and cried

And he said: ‘Nobody has kissed me

for the last thirty years.’

But you did.

You touched my face

With your fingers and said

‘I like you.’

The world will never be ready for you.

Your way is right

and the world will

never be ready.

We could learn everything

that we need to know

by watching you

going to your special school

full of people

who look like you

and love like you

and it’s not safe

to let you out alone.

If you’re not normal

there is very little hope

for the rest of us. ¹¹

I would like to give the last word to one of our greatest Irish poets, W.B. Yeats, with whom I began. In one of the last letters that he wrote at the end of his life just days before his death in 1939, he confides: ‘When I try to put it all into a phrase, I say, “Man can embody truth, but he cannot know it.” I must embody it in the completion of my life. The abstract is not life and everywhere draws out its contradictions. You can refute Hegel but not the saint nor the song of sixpence.’ ¹² The ‘song of sixpence’ is William Blake’s image of that which is little and ordinary, the small but meaningful things of life. The image of the ‘saint’ speaks for itself. I have no doubt that Yeats would have agreed with Nietzsche’s words that ‘thoughts that come on doves’ feet guide the world.’