January 2009 The Road to Daybreak A Spiritual Journey by Henri J M Nouwen

Gregory's Story Continue from ...... Then he showed slides of his life at Wolverleigh, to which he had come five years before. "Here I am in a store, buying food for the first time. And here I am in the kitchen, cooking my first meal. I was quite nervous, but everyone said they liked it." Then he showed a slide of all the members of the house, sitting around the table with a candle in the middle. Gregory said, "Here we are all together at evening prayer. We never did such a think in the institution. Here we are a family." Gregory's simple but penetrating presentation taught me more about the charism of L'Arche than any article I had read or lecture I had heard. L'Arche offers a home to broken people and gives them a new sense of dignity and self-respect. Gregory made the point and made it stick. Raymond's Accident Everyone's mind and heast is with Raymond, who has been hit by a car and seriously injured. Yesterday afternoon he and Bill were going to take a bus into town when Raymond suddenly crossed busy Yonge Street to reach the bus stop. Bill realized that Raymond had not noticed a car coming and tried to call him back. But Raymond did not hear him and was hit by the car and thrown into the air. At first it seemed that he had only minor fractures. But the X rays showed that many ribs were broken and one of his lungs was perforated. He is now in critical condition at St Michael's Hospital in Toronto. The whole community is visibly in anguish over it, especially DJ the head of the house where Raymond lives, and Bill, who saw it all happen in front of his eyes. I became more acutely aware of the awesome responsibility assumed by people who are for handicapped men and women. On the one hand, you want to protect them as much as possible; on the other hand, you want to give them their independence as much as possible. It is a fine line to walk between these two "wants." DJ is a very responsible, caring person. He had felt that Bill and Raymond could travel together without assistance. They had done so for a long time. Now he obviously wonders if he gave them too much independence. I went twice to St Michael's Hospital with Kathy Judge to visit Raymond. Although on a respirator and fed intravenously, he was able to respond to our questions with nods. We prayed with him and assured him of our love. It was so sad to see him unable to talk to us. A few times he tried to pull off the respirator to say a few words but had to be restrained from doing so.

- To Be Continued - © Copyright Shalom 2009. All rights reserved.