These are words of loving advice given to me by Fr David Standley, a Roman Catholic priest with many years of experience of l’Arche, and my accompagnateur, at our first meeting in London, shortly after I had begun to live and work and pray in l’Arche.

“Focus on what you receive rather than trying to control,” - this is, perhaps, one of the most enabling lessons that l’Arche offers to Christian leaders. In this brief article I would like us to look at l’Arche as a place of contemplation and then see if there are any lessons that the Christian leader in the early twenty-first century could learn from such contemplative places. For I believe that in our Western society, with all its emphasis on the individual, immediacy and influence, there are, perhaps, lessons that all who share in leadership could listen to with benefit.

When I look at churches where congregations have dwindled to the ‘faithful few’, where priests are burnt out having five, seven, or even more parishes in their ‘care’, where people who have been damaged because of censure rather than welcome no longer worship, very often I go onto discover that their leaders, committed men and women, are people who have been sucked into some of the worst aspects of Western society. Their leaders are so often people who have focused rather on control than on what they receive.  

Again and again I find Christian leaders who, in their sheer exhaustion, have misused their ministry in condemning rather than in loving. Henri Nouwen, the much loved spiritual writer who lived for some ten years in two of the l’Arche houses, writes in The Path of Power,[1]

The most insidious, divisive, and wounding power is the power used in the service of God. I am overwhelmed by the number of people who ‘have been wounded by religion.’ An unfriendly word by a minister or priest, a critical remark in church about a certain lifestyle, a refusal to welcome people at the table, an absence during an illness or death, and countless other hurts often remain longer in people’s memories than other more world-like rejections. Thousands of separated and divorced men and women, numerous gay and lesbian people, and all of the homeless people who felt unwelcome in the houses of worship of their brothers and sisters in the human family have turned away from God because they experienced the use of power when they expected an expression of love’ (pp. 14-15).

These words were written in 1995 and are, unhappily, still pertinent today. 

What, then, leads to this misuse? How can any Christian leader, who is beset by a vicious circle of so much impulsive email, so many urgent telephone messages, and a never-ending stream of erratic people needing immediate and satisfying answers to their problems and so on, preserve some distance from - if not actually remain detached from - the worst aspects of Western society? I think at least part of the answer may be found in contemplative prayer.[2] Let me unpack this and share some initial lessons I have learnt from being for a few months in l’Arche.

For most of the past five years I was living in the Channel Islands as a solitary priest-monk, but last November there was a call to leave Guernsey and to live and work and pray at one of the l’Arche houses in the United Kingdom. Only a few times in my life have I experienced a call so direct, so clear, so plain, so compelling, yet so full of love. This was a call seemingly out of the blue.

Although I’d had some friends down through the years who had learning disabilities, I did not know much about the disabilities themselves and thought I would be of little practical use. And although I’d known one or two folk who had lived as assistants in l’Arche (mainly in Canada), I was very ignorant about the work of l’Arche, especially in the UK.  

Moreover, I was intensely happy on Guernsey. I was living in an extremely comfortable house with a very dear companion. I had a great many friends. My gifts as a musician were being thoroughly appreciated. I was doing some important, ground-breaking work in the field of Mediaeval Studies.

Yet, now, when I look back, it does seem as if God had been gradually preparing me - and others, for the Holy Spirit never works in an individualistic way - for this move.  And as so often happens, reflecting on some of the more extraordinary things that had occurred, especially, although by no means only, in recent years, I became aware that God had been there, gently sowing seeds that are now beginning to blossom, such as being introduced to people with learning disabilities on Guernsey; and being sent books on disability theology, books by Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen, to review.

A number of Channel Islanders were surprised (if not, actually shocked!) at the call, doubting its authenticity. A few, not knowing me - or God? - as well as they thought, said that I would soon be back. Others, notably in England, who knew me somewhat better, perceived that this was indeed a divine vocation, which would last and bear fruit, and have continued to support me through prayer and in a myriad of other ways.

But what about the monastic way of life? What about prayer? Most of all, what about the call to lead a contemplative life?

I have discovered that l’Arche is a way of life, even, perhaps paradoxically, a contemplative one. And others have discovered this, too.

Writing in Frances Young’s Encounter with Mystery: Reflections on l’Arche and Living with Disability,[3] Mark Santer, former bishop of Birmingham, comments that:

An outsider, who had simply heard about l’Arche as a kind of religious community caring for handicapped people, would naturally expect to categorise it as active rather than contemplative. And yet anyone who has ever experienced, however briefly, the life of l’Arche, will have found that they have entered a community which is profoundly contemplative in spirit. (p. 94).

Now, although I have only experienced a few months in l’Arche, I find that the spirit of l’Arche is, indeed, ‘profoundly contemplative’. How can this be? What, in fact, enables some volunteers, having lived as assistants at l’Arche, to recognise their calling to the contemplative life? What do people with and without learning disabilities teach me about spirituality in general and prayer in particular that enables this recognition to be made?

It is, I think, through the abiding awareness of the presence of God that we may begin to become aware of the possibility that l’Arche is a contemplative way of life.

For me, personally, the move to l’Arche was, at first, challenging and very tiring. I had always found that talking and writing flowed. Now, I had to pitch what I had to say in our nightly prayer times together in words that were understandable, but not dumbed down. I knew that folk would see straight through that one. My first Eucharistic service was far too wordy. What I had enjoyed doing before - being in control of the service - was no longer an option. My suggestions for celebrating the Triduum (literally ‘three days’ from Maundy Thursday evening to Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday) were batted straight out of court and what replaced these, from other peoples’ many years of experiencing worship in l’Arche, was something far more spontaneous and fecund. I found the service of foot-washing on Maundy Thursday, where we all take it in turns to wash one another’s feet (or hands), deeply moving.

But the people who live in l’Arche accepted me. In Gracias!,[4] a journal of his travels in Bolivia and Peru, Henri Nouwen writes:

One of the most rewarding experiences of living in a strange land is the experience of being loved not for what we can do, but for who we are ... This is a hard vocation. It goes against the grain of our need for self-affirmation, self-fulfilment and self-realisation. It is a call to true humility (pp. 17, 18). 

The folk at l’Arche removed my blindfold and revealed things about the gospels that had previously been ‘deep and hidden.’[5] And as the people at l’Arche became friends, so our love and trust for one another, and God, deepened.

Mark Santer goes on to write in his article:

‘There is an inseparability between attention to God and attention to other people ... A school of attention to other people, such as l’Arche, is at the same time a school of attention to God. That is why, in a world scarred by activism, manipulation and godlessness, l’Arche is a place and source of healing’ (p. 96).

At l’Arche I was enabled to pray more. I was enabled to be quieter. I was enabled to discover God in my heart in ways that had not happened before. I was enabled to be in community. Above all, I was enabled to be more fully myself, to explore and accept more deeply my own disability (I was registered blind in 1998), to learn from all my friends and to receive love, not for what I did but for who I was.

Again in Gracias! Henri Nouwen adds, “A ministry of word and sacrament has to grow from a deep solidarity with the people. Contemplation is essential to ministry, and listening to people’s lives and receiving them in a prayerful heart is true contemplation.” (p. 148). Contemplative prayer goes deeper than words, and, in my own experience, when there are problems of communication, prayer itself is intensified and it is so often the eyes of the person with communication problems that express so much, that are frequently far more eloquent than any words.

“In contrast with the spirit of contemplation”, Mark Santer writes, “the active spirit likes to be in charge. It promotes a clear distinction between those who are doing good and those who are receiving it. It imposes itself, it organises, it sets goals and objectives, it likes to work by timetable ... In a life centred on activity, the verbal is of primary importance. Things are verbalised and discussed. Plans are formed, orders are given, instructions are put into effect” (pp. 95-96).

In l’Arche, it simply doesn’t work if a person sets him/herself up to be in charge, especially where spiritual matters are concerned. The more the person who would be leader rushes around, anxiously trying to affirm themselves, or seeking affirmation from others, the further that person places themselves from God and from those he is called to serve. There is a mutuality of care in l’Arche that prevents this from happening. And rigid timetables are out of place. Mark Santer continues:

Here, people have to learn to wait for each other, and to wait not for the clock but for the right time. Patience is central. The assistants are working and living with people who do not operate by contract, but who respond to attention, responding when they are ready to respond.[6]

The habits of attention and waiting are habits of contemplation, in which we receive as well as give, in which we are acted upon as well as acting (p. 95).

I think that prayer without ceasing has something to do with this spirit of attention and waiting. For what is prayer but a waiting that is pregnant with loving attention. “In consequence,” Mark Santer goes on, “there is in such a setting no clear or simple line to be drawn between ... the doers and the receivers of good” (p. 95).

I think Mark Santer sums up what I have been trying to say about l’Arche as a contemplative way of life very well when he writes:

In such a life there is an intensity of attention to the present moment, which thereby takes on something of the quality of eternity. This too is of the essence of contemplation, as a kind of anticipation of the life of heaven, in which past and future are all contained in one eternal present (p. 94).

What are the lessons, then, that may be learnt from the contemplative life for the Christian leader in the first part of the twenty-first century?

The contemplative, the person who is aware of the divine presence in others, who waits on others, no longer needs, is not hungry for human contacts, but is guided by a vision of what he has seen beyond the immediate concerns of this world. Indeed, this vision of the Other, which is at the heart of the contemplative life, is also at the heart of ministry and it is the work of the contemplative leader to make this vision visible to others. The contemplative strips away the illusory blindfold of the present world and has ‘the courage to show what the true situation is.’[7] Moreover, he will be aware of signs of hope and potential in the situation in which he finds himself and the person whom he serves.

As such, the ministry of the contemplative leader co-operating with God will be different for each person. To come full circle, until the Christian leader lets go of his power, his attempts to control, his search for success, until he empties himself of all that is worldly and embraces servant-hood, that person will burn out and misuse the authority placed in him. Until the Church, the body of Christ, stops ascribing status in the wealthy rather than the poor, the powerful rather than those without power, the enabled rather than the disabled, it will (we will) continue to reject the significance of our status in Christ. But the blindfold that prevents us from seeing all of this has so often become an invisible one because the theology that so many Christian leaders have developed and come to respect is one of health and wealth, of success, reflecting the values of our culture. 

Again and again the church has turned to the secular ‘wisdom’ of our society (witness the recent directions regarding receiving Holy Communion and sharing the Peace in an attempt to limit the spread of swine flu), where it has discovered a pragmatic solution to church leadership, expecting leaders to gain the best academic training, work from their own strengths, research their target audience and tailor the approach to fit, to plan, to have a moribund vision, etc., etc., rather than abandoning self-reliance and depending on God.

The contemplative is the one who sees things as they really are. And this can be uncomfortable, and at times painful, but this is the way of the cross, where the Christian leader - the praying leader, the trusting leader, the vulnerable leader - hangs with outstretched arms. The leader, the contemplative leader, is the one who enables others to catch a glimpse of this shared experience of things as they really are. A glimpse of a shared life in which we constantly move, as Tom Merton taught, from opaqueness to transparency. And the move involves weakness, suffering, hardship and persecution.   

In short, to contemplate is to see and to minister is to make visible. The contemplative life is a life with a vision, and the life of leading others is a life of revealing this vision to them. It is in this, I think, that reflecting on the teaching of Henri Nouwen and some of the lessons learnt from being at l’Arche can enable our Christian leaders to help, share, support and trust, rather than disable, control and dominate. In a society that has moved from shutting away its disabled, through accepting them, to learning from them, this is one lesson that can be learnt and in learning from it there is hope for the church, its leaders and for all its people.[8]