From “Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life” by Henri Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird
Someone who showed me how important it is to learn to listen not just to people like Mother Teresa, whom many people revere, but to attend to the voices of the people we live with most intimately was Father Thomas Philippe. Pere Thomas is a Dominican priest who cofounded the L’Arche community with Jean Vanier in Trosly, France, in the mid-1960s. Even though he has died, he is still considered the community’s spiritual father. He believed that God speaks primarily through family members and close friends with whom we have a primary relationship. We spent many hours talking about the way an intimate and intensive relationship with one’s spouse, parents, child, or friend creates a dynamic interpersonal relation that also is transpersonal and spiritual, and thus can become a vehicle for divine presence and direction, though in a limited way. For many who come to L’Arche, primary relationships have been severed or strained due to the difficulties of living with disabilities. One of the most healing aspects of L’Arche is the way the members of the community – those who are able-bodied and those who are not, those who can speak and those who can’t – are all seen as mediators of love and grace by those in the community.