The past few days have been chock-a-block. New learning on adjusting to new cultures continues. Life-long learning as an idea is sweet; as a practice it is not—it requires the will to train. The mornings I feel like getting up and going to class, I do; the mornings I don’t feel like getting up and learning, I do anyway. My practice has still been getting up early before dawn and walking in the hills surrounding Missionary Training International here in Palmer Lake, elevation 7,300 ft. Sometimes I’ve walked with another missionary, Gary, who is heading off with his family to Honduras shortly. Sometimes I just walk with Jesus. Today was one of those days. I listened to a podcast on www.speakingoffaith.com, with Jean Vanier, the 82 year old founder of L’Arche, a group of 131 homes for the handicapped in 24 different countries. The topic was “the wisdom of tenderness.” His goal is nothing more than to be the friend of Jesus.
I was struck by Vanier’s focus on the primacy of experience over ideas, body over mind, being before doing, gentleness over forcefulness. He left his culture of the bright and talented for the culture of the marginalized, the weak. Now, at this age, they come to him as he sits writing, stroke his head, and say, “poor old man….” Vanier has mastered the art of being vulnerable. He is willing to stand with Jesus, outside the gates of the busy, and wait patiently for someone to open the door (Rev 3:20).
He remembers the Chinese pictograph of the word busy: one symbol for heart joined with another for death. Today he has been my teacher of a different kind of lesson than my school after the day dawned. Both were good. Thank you, Jesus, for walking with me in the dark and quiet moments of listening and prayer; the light and loud moments of listening and prayer—and all those other moments in between.
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