For the John Templeton Foundation, I wrote about the profound lessons of community and inclusion within the L’Arche network.
The L’Arche community began in 1967 when a French Canadian named Jean Vanier invited two intellectually disabled men to live with him as friends in a house in a small village north of Paris. Today, L’Arche — whose name alludes to its role as both a bridge and an ark of refuge for its members — encompasses 154 communities in 38 countries and more than 10,000 residential and non-residential participants.
For Vanier — who passed away in May at the age of 90 — and for those who helped create and carry on the work of L’Arche, the values of humility and compassionate love have always been central. In his speech accepting the 2015 Templeton Prize for his work with L’Arche, Vanier said that “if we become a friend of somebody who has been humiliated, rejected, put down, seen as unimportant, something happens. If you become a friend of somebody rejected, we are changed.”