Jean was happy

From Becoming Human by Jean Vanier:

No one individual, no one group is superior to others. We may be different in race, culture, religion, and capacities, but we are all the same, with vulnerable hearts, the need to love and be loved, the need to grow, to develop our capacities, and to find our place in the world. We all need to find our selves of value. We are all the same because throughout our lives we have, every one of us, been hurt in one way or another.

Jean Vanier believes that society's fear of people with disabilities is rooted deep in the human psyche. Every young couple, he has said, is frightened that their child will have a handicap.

Many of the people who live in L'Arche are severely disabled; many need help with the most basic human functions. The foundation of L'Arche is the idea of 'living with' and not just 'doing for' people with diminished mental capacities. The paid carers and volunteers live as a family with those who are disabled. The first L'Arche was a single home for just two mentally disabled men. There are now 130 L'Arche communities around the world for about 2,500 people with all sorts of disabilities - people who might otherwise have been left in institutions or on the streets begging.

"The particular thing about many people with disabilities is that they cry out for relationship," Mr. Vanier says. "They're not crying out for power or success. They say, 'Do you believe I'm a person, that I have value?' If a child comes in here, that child can transform us by looking up and saying, 'Do you love me?' The child brings down our defense mechanisms and our barriers, and touches something deep within us. In people with disabilities there is something similar. It touches us and opens us up to something new."

"Weakness becomes our strength. Because when I say I'm weak, I say I need you. Weakness can be beautiful because it can bring us together in community."

"The sign of being human is to be a friend to the weak person. There's something in the history of humanity that shows being human is to care for the weak, the fragile."

Mr. Vanier founded L'Arche more than 40 years ago in the small French town of Trosly, where he still lives and from where he still travels the world visiting communities and encouraging new projects, giving lectures and retreats.

And today Jean Vanier turns 80.

A story:

Mr. Vanier: Oh, yes, yes. Yes, I was sitting in my office and there was a man who was a bit glum like a lot of people, a bit glum. And but, anyway, there was a knock on the door. And before I could say "Come in" Jean Claude walked in and Jean Claude technically would be Down Syndrome. And Jean Claude shook my hand and laughed, and shook the hand of the other fellow and laughed and went out laughing. And the man that had been in my office looked at me and said, "Isn't it sad, children like that?" And I mean, he, what was sad was that he was totally blind. He didn't see that Jean Claude was happy.