Maria's May Musings

“Cogar i leith chugam anois agus éist go fóill” - Whisper here to me now and listen for a while…

Just the other day, a friend and I drove around Belfast noticing the spaces in North, South, East and West where L’Arche has a connection or a presence. She was astonished how something so tiny could ever be so big. Passing ‘The Loom‘ on the Crumlin Road where Thomas, with his coloured ‘Bible Book’, faithfully weaves relationships with others through prayer at 7am every Monday morning, it struck me that what L’Arche is essentially about is listening for the whisper of what is powerful and not useful and being with what is worthy of being with.

Something is useless if you can’t use it or so it is said. We often apply the same principle to people. If they don’t fit on a production line or consume what comes off a production line they too are considered useless. We don’t understand how they can really matter and humans have a habit of invalidating that which we don’t understand. In our eyes people who seem useless become invalid people. In another era, invalid was the term used for disability.

After our Belfast L’Arche tour, my friend and I returned to the Ember and, there in his usual spot, Larry was standing at the gate waiting for us. I asked him to introduce himself to Ann. “Larry what shows up in our house because you are there?” – he answered – ‘Happy’. Yes indeed, ‘Happy’ surely shows up in the world because Larry is here, faithful friendship through Thomas, beauty through Jillian, kindness through Matthew and lovability through May! Through the filter of our utilitarian worldview I wonder how many of us could describe ourselves so humbly and so powerfully. How many of us would measure our value through what gets generated through our lives instead of what we produce.

I heard it said once “to commit our lives to a purpose bigger than our lives … is the context for ecstasy”. Larry lives that kind of ecstasy. His whole life is such a commitment. He is unstoppable in ‘Happy’ing the world. He has given his life to it. It is who he is. Most of us who know Larry would say that it is not related to his doing but rather through the quality of attention he gives and the relationships he creates. Larry ‘IS’ that we are happy.

In our world of recession talk of diminishing production and consumption, it is likely that many people experience themselves as useless and in their shame they become invalid and voiceless. If we have eyes to see, people like Larry, Jillian, Thomas, Christian, May, Matthew, Helen, Paul, David, Adam, Lisa…can be the unlikely leaders of our times. They know a truth and a purpose bigger than our capacity to do and they are an unshakeable force for the transformation of our world through love. Though they use few words they are not the voiceless ones. They do, however, have the authority to speak in the name of all the voiceless people and into the hearts of all of us, who in one way or another live in fear that any day we too could become useless, voiceless or …God forbid, invalid!

It’s good to be reminded that ‘Usefulness” is, in fact, only the booby prize. It is something altogether different that truly matters and makes all the difference.