Ian Brown and L'Arche

Ian Brown has written about Walker and you can read web excerpts of "The Boy In The Moon". Brown's public quest to understand Walker, his relationship with Walker, and his difficult decision to put Walker in an institutional care setting lead to a dialogue with the L'Arche community founder Jean Vanier about the challenges and rewards of living with the profoundly differently abled. Read about the genesis of what L'Arche Canada called "an inevitable encounter".

Brown's "Doing the Work of the Heart" (now requires paid access) was a first introduction to many of this dialogue and is an amazing article. I found a lovely excerpt:

Ian Brown writes, "I said: 'I have a language with my handicapped son, who can't speak, where I connect to him by clicking my tongue.' The whole half-assed idea just came blurting out of me. 'And he recognizes it, and sometimes responds. Sometimes that feels like praying to me.'

'That is praying,' Mr. Vanier said. 'You see, praying is not doing. It's a moment when we're clicking. A lot of people don't know that. And because they're not going to church on Sundays, they feel guilty. They don't know they're praying. Through compassion. Through peacefulness and thankfulness for who you are. For the body you have, for the age you have, for the family, for the flowers that you see outside. Gratefulness. Prayer is communion and gratefulness.'

'So prayer,' I said, 'is a way of reminding ourselves' '- to be who we are,' he said."

From Passage Des Perles