http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/5023403 Column test 1

]]> Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:07:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/5023403 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/5023401 blog test

]]> Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:07:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/5023401 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1484075

]]> Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:12:00 -0500 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1484075 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1435511 Albeit largely taboo in our society, this is important content for us to be talking about...

"Researchers find that lonely people that were surveyed ‘infected' remaining friends with the emotion before those relationships faltered..."

Here's the full article online at the Globe and Mail, the comments are also worth reading through.

]]> Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:12:00 -0500 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1435511 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1433033 This fall, Random House published Ian Brown’s very beautiful, and to some, controversial, book The Boy in the Moon, about his journey with his son Walker, who is profoundly disabled by cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome (CFC), a rare genetic disorder.

Follow this link for current and back issues of A Human Future.

Authored/Prepared by: Beth Porter
Published by: L'Arche Canada
Date published: December 2009
Publication Type: Interview
Description: Walker Brown: Pool of Hope; Collective Work of Art; Teacher - An Interview with Ian Brown

]]> Fri, 04 Dec 2009 04:12:00 -0500 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/1433033 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/561181 December 26, 2008 at 11:37 PM EST

TROSLY-BREUIL, FRANCE — There's no St. Christopher's medal to protect passengers on the dashboard of Jean Vanier's little red car, although perhaps there should be. With only its headlights and a full moon to light the way, the car creeps along the frosty country roads near Trosly-Breuil, an hour north of Paris, where he has lived for the past 44 years in the first of the many communities he has built for the disabled.

As Mr. Vanier inches along, various irate French motorists swerve past honking, but the 80-year-old at the wheel is supremely serene. At the age of 13, he crossed the Atlantic in mid-war, unaccompanied, and was later an officer on a Canadian aircraft carrier, and once nearly drowned. He has spent most of his life in the company of the pained and desperate. What's a little highway aggravation compared with that?

Finally, he spots his destination and pulls into the parking lot. This is La Petite Source, one of the foyers (group homes) that make up L'Arche (The Ark), the international network of communities for people with intellectual disabilities that Mr. Vanier founded in 1964.

Marie-Claire and Benjamin, two of the residents of La Petite Source, are waiting for him outside, coatless, in slippers. (The community prefers to keep members' surnames private.) Benjamin runs over to give Mr. Vanier a high five and tells him, in French, that although it's his free night — he could be visiting family, or another foyer — he decided to stay when he heard who was coming to dinner.
Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche - an international organization which creates communities for people with developmental disabilities.

Jean Vanier, founder of L'Arche - an international organization which creates communities for people with developmental disabilities.

From the archives
* The Vanier Letters, Part I: Doing the work of the heart
* The Vanier Letters, Part II: 'Your questions come, I sense, from your loneliness'
* The Vanier Letters, Part III: After Morgentaler, Jean Vanier kept his Order of Canada. Why?
* Globe editorial: A great Canadian citizen of the world

Internet Links
* L'Arche Canada website

Mr. Vanier claps him on the back with a huge hand and laughs. "You have made a great sacrifice, Benjamin."

Inside, Fairuz, the Franco-Lebanese woman who has run this foyer for 22 years, brings a pot of vegetable soup to the table. At the heart of L'Arche is the notion that mentally handicapped people and volunteer caregivers live together. And at the heart of that is the sacrament of mealtime — it is France, after all.

There are three volunteers, a priest and six residents at dinner. They are intrigued to hear that Mr. Vanier has been chosen as the nation builder of the year by a newspaper halfway around the world because of the work he has done with people like them.

Mainly, though, there's village gossip, world news and good-natured jokes about who has a crush on whom. Mr. Vanier inquires after Jean-Francois's mother and hears, from the end of the table, that Michel would like to go to Berlin. He has known Michel for four decades and lived with him for some of those years, since removing him from a dire local psychiatric hospital.

"Do you know any German?" Mr. Vanier asks.

Michel pauses for a moment and says, "Danke schön."

Food is plentiful but reverence is in short supply for a man many regard — to his quiet but intense irritation — as a living saint. When Mr. Vanier pulls out an over-full date book in order to find time to meet with the priest, a volunteer named Stephanie begins to hum the theme from Mission: Impossible. Benjamin joins in.

After dinner, the entire household gathers to pray and read from a children's book of Bible stories — tonight, there is a passage about Jesus's love for "les faibles," the weak.

Later, as Mr. Vanier leaves, the residents gather outside to wave goodbye. He fears that one day the frailties of age might make his visits not a pleasure for them to anticipate but a burden for them to endure. But that's a worry for another day.

A SEED SPROUTS

From Mr. Vanier's tiny front yard, you can see where L'Arche began — the derelict house he bought at the age of 36 in order to live with Philippe Seux and Raphael Simi, two mentally handicapped men from a nearby institution.

A devout Roman Catholic, he had moved to Trosly-Breuil to be near his spiritual adviser, Rev. Thomas Philippe, a theologian and philosopher. Mr. Vanier knew little at that point except that his faith was leading him to share his life with the weak and dispossessed, to learn from them by living together.

But he also knew that he loved to travel, so he didn't want the community to contain more members than could fit in a car.

Now, there are nine foyers in Trosly-Breuil alone, with 29 more in Canada and 132 chapters of L'Arche worldwide, as well as more than 1,500 non-residential support groups in its sister network, Faith and Light. There are many more applicants for places in L'Arche homes than there are vacancies, especially in countries such as India and Haiti.

Could Mr. Vanier ever have imagined that the seed — as he likes to call the beginning of L'Arche — would have sprouted an entire sheltering forest?

"Not in my wildest dreams," he says.

He is folded into his favourite chair and even if he is a bit stooped, he is still much too tall for this little house. Some of his own bestselling books sit on the shelves, but otherwise there is no hint of the Order of Canada and the Legion d'honneur or that this is a man who has been put forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.

There are images of Mary and the infant Jesus on the walls, books of theology and philosophy stacked everywhere — and silence. No radio, no computer, no television. Even when Mr. Vanier is staying in a hotel, giving talks or travelling on L'Arche business, he's worried about being "seduced" by television's lazy embrace.

Not that he travels as much these days; he is officially retired, and not responsible for the day-to-day running of the foyers. "Now, I'm free to do what I like, and what I like is to announce the message: That people who are weak have something to bring us, that they are important people and it's important to listen to them. In some mysterious way, they change us. Being in a world of the strong and powerful, you collect attitudes of power and hardness and invulnerability."

Yet Mr. Vanier's own journey took him from the world of power and privilege to his discovery, as a young man with a spiritual thirst, that "it is vulnerability that brings us together."

He remembers watching the coronation parade of King George VI from the top of Canada House, where his father, Georges Vanier, was the second-in-command to the High Commissioner, Vincent Massey. It was Georges Vanier, along with his wife, Pauline, who installed in their five children a sense of public service, and an abiding faith.

SETTING SAIL

When Jean Vanier was 13, he persuaded his father, the future governor-general of Canada, to let him move to England and begin training at the Royal Navy College.

It was no small request: In 1941, one of five ships making the transatlantic crossing was sunk by German submarines. Georges Vanier, who had spent three years in the trenches and lost a leg in the First World War, took a deep breath and said yes.

His mother took a little more convincing. But Pauline Vanier was won over to her son's naval career in the same way that, eventually, she was won over to L'Arche: The pale stone house where she lived for almost 20 years, until her death in 1991, sits just down the road in Trosly-Breuil, surrounded by chestnut trees.

"She was the grandmother to all of L'Arche," her son recalls today.

Family, both real and metaphorical, is at the core of the community. Mr. Vanier has chosen to live a celibate life, unmarried and childless. Asked if he has ever regretted that decision, he shakes his big head slowly. The residents and the volunteers are his family. He is a central, patriarchal figure in their world.

"Although he's not a parent himself, he's a father figure to so many people," says Mary, an actress from London, who is attending a retreat at Trosly-Breuil where Mr. Vanier is speaking on one of his favourite topics, the Gospel of St. John. She and her husband have an autistic son; when they discovered Mr. Vanier's message about communion with the handicapped, "we were carried away by his thinking, very comforted by it."

But family can also be the seat of what Mr. Vanier calls "the central anguish," especially when one of its members is suffering and the others are incapable of providing consolation.

Recently, a couple came to him with their one-and-a-half-year-old son, who had an undiagnosed disorder and screamed incessantly. Mr. Vanier asked the mother how she was, and she muttered, "Okay." He asked the father, a military man, the same question. "Sometimes," the father said, "I want to throw him out the window."

Mr. Vanier leans forward in his chair. "And I said to him, 'I understand. I've lived the same thing.'"

He is referring to Lucien, a severely handicapped man who used to live with him and whose endless shrieking began with his mother's death and rarely stopped. Mr. Vanier often returns to Lucien in his writing: Suffering through that noise helped him understand not only his own limitations but what the families of disabled people must go through, isolated as they often are.

"It obviously penetrated through all my protective systems and awoke anguish, and I could see violence within me," he says. "If I hadn't been in a community, I don't know what I would have done."

Lucien died a few years ago; his screaming never ceased entirely. It is easy, when hearing this story, to understand why L'Arche is always facing a shortage of volunteers. Most people would find such a life too taxing to endure.

What Mr. Vanier finds surprising is that very often it's the volunteers' parents who don't want them to work at L'Arche.

"Parents will say, 'We gave you education, university, and now you want to live with these people?'"

This leads to one of the cornerstones of Mr. Vanier's philosophy, which is essentially that we've lost track of the different ways to measure a successful life. We have become hypnotized by competition and desire for material success.

"There's obviously a good aspect in competition — the development of the body, the mind, creativity," Mr. Vanier says. "But there's something where we can very quickly walk on people — I want to prove I'm better than you. How to find a world where the essential thing is to work for peace, to work to build something together?"

He notes that the United Nations has recommended that the study of non-violence be included on all school curricula.

"I'm amazed that this is not being done. What is more important is that I should go back home and show that I'm better than the others. … The pain of parents comes when children don't seem to be doing as well as others. Everything becomes competition."

What Mr. Vanier hopes the Nation Builder award will mean, perhaps, is that more young people will be compelled to work at L'Arche, "to come and live, and discover people with disabilities."

One of those who came and stayed was Cariosa Kilcommons. Disillusioned with her pre-med studies, Ms. Kilcommons dropped out of St. Francis Xavier University more than 20 years ago to live at the L'Arche home in Cape Breton. Four years later, she came to stay in Trosly; now, she returns to her family home in Pincher Creek, Alta., only for the occasional holiday.

"It was pretty radical," she says of her decision to make L'Arche her life. "But I was filled with inner certitude. It's true that a lot is asked of us here, but we get a lot back. The hours are long, but the experience is so rich."

Now, she lives with the residents at a foyer called Val Fleuri and, when she can grab him for 15 minutes, she has the duty — she would say the privilege — of cutting Mr. Vanier's shaggy hair. While she has him in the chair, they talk about many things: the residents, their faith and the future of L'Arche.

"Jean is very wise," she says, "because he knows when to give concrete support, but he also knows how to sit back and let us find our way."

THE NEXT GENERATION

Increasingly, it will mean watching others take the lead at L'Arche. Mr. Vanier says he is content to leave the community in the hands of the next generation. If he has worries, they have to do with what he calls "the pain of age" — that infirmity will rob him of his position in the community.

It happened to his friend Jacqueline d'Halluin, one of the co-founders of L'Arche, who has such severe Parkinson's that she can no longer live at a foyer. Mr. Vanier goes to sit with her, but he cannot understand what she says any more. "And I find that very painful."

For now, though, he is hearty, barring a bit of deafness. He is mobile, able to ponder issues as he travels between foyers and to forge life-preserving relationships wherever he goes.

The other day, riding the Metro in Paris, he found a young girl, wearing a head scarf, begging in the station. Perhaps she had been thrown out of her house or had run away. Mr. Vanier put a coin in her cup, then bent down, took her hand and asked her name. The girl looked up, surprised, and gave him a huge smile.

"What she was waiting for was someone to ask her name, for a relationship," he says. "I gave her a euro, but the smile she gave me was worth 300 euros. I carried her face all day."

Elizabeth Renzetti is a member of The Globe and Mail's European bureau.]]> Tue, 30 Dec 2008 05:12:00 -0500 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/561181 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/514375 ]]> Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:10:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/514375 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/508725
- Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, p. 36
]]> Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:10:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/508725 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/434415 I found this book review over at Curledup.com:

Peter Block is an inspirational thinker. To quote from his website, "Peter is the author of several bestselling books. The most widely known are Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (1st edition 1980, 2nd edition 1999), Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest (1993), and The Empowered Manager: Positive Political Skills at Work (1987). Peter is the recipient of the first place 2004 Members' Choice Award by the Organization Development Network, which recognized Flawless Consulting as the most influential book for OD practitioners over the past 40 years." In this latest work, Block has taken the word "community" and kneaded, massaged and squeezed it into extreme flexibility, so that it can compact itself into the microcosm or expand to fill the whole world.

Reading this book took me back to my days as a community activist, when the rage was the work of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. I was glad to note that Freire's name still crops up from time to time, along with that of philosopher E.F. Schumacher, both icons of an earlier generation of change agents. I'm intrigued to see that community action has not changed - that is, it is still hard to motivate people, and calls for constant shifts of language and even room arrangement to keep the energy flowing. Block wisely refers to America's urban centers as "New Orleans without the flood" and urges us not to become complacent just because our own lives are proceeding according to plan. There are still people in our country who are suffering and who need the assistance of dedicated activists. The distress and chaos "out there" is our responsibility.

Community is a how-to (bearing in mind that "the answer to how is yes," according to Block). It allows the potential activist to do a lot of self-winnowing - asking him/herself such questions as "to what extent are you here by choice," "what is the yes you no longer mean," and "what promises are you willing to make." This sets up any planned meeting with a greater chance of success. Block makes practical suggestions for how to plan a meeting - invite decisionmakers, money-raisers and experts as well as marginalized people who bring important news from the field. He reminds us that we are all citizens of our country but also of our community, and we need to take that responsibility seriously. While many sincere people perceive needs and want to help, they will have to galvanize their vague aspirations and work with a collective gestalt in order to achieve concrete goals.

Here is one example of the radical way that Block approaches the issue of community building: "We need to tell people not to be helpful. Trying to be helpful and giving advice are really ways to control others. In community building we want to substitute curiosity for advice. No call to action." It is input like this that makes Block's work so groundbreaking and, among serious community workers, so popular.

In order to transform our communities, we have to be willing to transform ourselves. For some this will be relatively easy - a quick shift in inner orientation - and for others it will require more deep trenching. In a profound sense, aspiring to improve our environment and assist our neighbors requires that we improve ourselves. That is the challenge of community and the rallying cry of Community.


Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Barbara Bamberger Scott, 2008]]> Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:07:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/434415 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/418329 The Tamarack Institute is a truly rich resource for those of us working in community. They recently surveyed 501 people and asked them the question: What does belonging mean to you?

Below is the leader story from Tamarack's site and pdf file with all the reponses.

462 people responded to the question: What does belonging mean to you?

Jean Vanier says that belonging does for human beings what soil does for plants: it nurtures us, and enables us to grow and to blossom.

That’s certainly what came through in the survey responses.

“Belonging,” wrote one respondent, “means feeling safe to be who you are without fear.”

Most of all, belonging is about being – it’s about sense, emotion, relationship - it is at the essence of where we all want to be. It’s a place and a feeling we yearn for. And, when we feel as though we belong, we are in community.

As Paul [Born] continues his research and writing for his forthcoming book Seeking Community - Finding Belonging in Chaotic Times, he’ll share his thoughts on his blog. Join him there, or email Tamarack, with your responses and thoughts on belonging.]]> Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:07:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/418329 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/411651
The longer we journey on the road to inner healing and wholeness, the more the sense of belonging grows and deepens. The sense is not just one of belonging to others and to a community. It is a sense of belonging to the universe, to the earth, to the air, to the water, to everything that lives, to all humanity. If the community gives a sense of belonging, it also helps us to accept our aloneness in a personal meeting with God. Through this, the community is open to the universe and to humankind.

Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p. 17]]> Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:07:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/411651 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/390541 From BC Healthy Communities:

Closing my eyes, I hear my grandmother’s voice: I just don’t understand what’s happening in the world – it’s going a little crazy! Everything is changing! And it’s all happening so fast! Then I hear my own sixteen-year-old voice rising in reply: Yes, isn’t it great?

Change is like that – welcomed by some, resisted by others. But change is a constant in our lives. As Heraclitus noted centuries ago, “everything flows, nothing stands still” … “nothing
endures but change.” So, if change is ever present, how do we learn to not only welcome and embrace it, but to intentionally cultivate healthy change? How can we invest our time and resources in those areas where healthy change can most productively flow and grow? And what are the most effective levers for healthy change? ...

The Time Traveller’s Lament
To understand some of the changes that have occurred since my grandmother’s time, I need
look no further than the community in which I grew up. In so many ways – socially,
economically, environmentally, culturally – my community has changed. Although it occupies
the same geographical space, with familiar roads and buildings, mountains and monuments, my
local community is just not the same place in which my grandmother and I had our earlier
conversation. Time has travelled on.

And we continue to notice life around us growing a little faster, a little crazier, a little more
complex. We’ve all heard a familiar response to these changes, a refrain that laments the loss
of community. Wanting to fill the gap, some folks look to an earlier time, the “good old days”
when neighbours were known, when work was close to home, when help was just around the
corner. Others look for connectedness a little further from home, reaching beyond the bounds of
geographical community, forging friendships in far-away places. Aided by the internet and other
technological innovations, for example, social, economic, interpersonal and professional
connections now stretch across the world.

While we pride ourselves on global citizenship, however, we don’t necessarily know the
neighbour next door. We pay rapt attention to political events in other countries. We adapt our
consumer habits, knowing that rampant fuel consumption in certain parts of the world threatens
food security elsewhere. We endeavour to influence the policies of developing countries, caring
deeply about the health and well-being of other global citizens. To some it may seem that we
know and care more about what is going on half-way round the world than we do about events
and people here at home.

But while the ways we connect with others may be changing, let’s not be so quick to lament the
loss of local community. Perhaps our approach to community is merely in transition. Perhaps
our needs for community, and our search for meaning and connection within community, are
growing and changing as we grow and change.

The Seeds of Global Compassion are Sown at Home
Here’s one way to look at it: While acknowledging that this is a world of great diversity, there is
something that all humans have in common, no matter which corner of the globe we call home.
Everyone in the world lives in a local community. No matter how different the details of our lives,
no matter how far our travels may take us, no matter how temporary our current location might
be, living in local community is a characteristic we all share.

No matter where it’s situated on this earth, local community not only influences our health and
well being, it also shapes our development. Local community is where we learn about
ourselves, and about other people. Local community is where we learn to take our first steps
toward independence and, hopefully, toward self-authoring adulthood. Local community is
where we learn to build relationships with an ever-widening circle of people, and to consider
ever-widening points of view. Local community is where we learn about the social, cultural and
economic foundations of our society, and experience the ways in which our decisions and
actions affect other people and the environment. Not surprisingly, everything we learn shows up
in our approach to neighbourliness, to environmental sustainability, to community engagement,
to governance. It shows up as our capacity to build healthy community.

Furthermore, local community is where we sow the seeds of global citizenship. It’s where we
sow the seeds of global responsibility and global response-ability. While responsibility has a
moral and ethical connotation, signifying our accountability to others, response-ability is a little
different; it means an ability to respond.

According to economist Fred Kofman, response-ability describes the difference between people
who view themselves as “victims,” subject to forces beyond their control, and those who see
themselves as a “player.” The player, he says, “is in the game and can affect the result. … This
power to respond is a defining feature of humanity .Our response-ability is a direct expression of
our rationality, our will, and our freedom. Being human is being response-able.”1 Each of us has
the potential to be a player – a contributor, a self-authoring adult, a citizen, an agent of positive
change. Our capacity as global citizens is highly correlated with our capacity as local citizens to
be response-able, or able to respond. In this way, active engagement in local community is the
incubator for global compassion and care. Practicing response-ability in our own back yard not
only builds our capacity for global response-ability, it supports each of us to stretch toward the
peak of human potential.

People. Place. Potential.
This now familiar tag line is a key element of the BC Healthy Communities logo. But what does it
mean? Community, we know, is more than a mere collection of people. And community is more
than shared geographical space. At conferences and in classrooms, the University of Manitoba’s
Ian Wight promotes a reintegration of people and place, suggests that “place-making,” in which
planners and community members creatively and collaboratively co-design the physical and social
aspects of cities and towns, just might be the next frontier in community planning.

This fits with my own perspective that people and place are inseparable elements of community-
building. But how does potential fit in?

One way we can think about potential is to consider human needs. Community, whether it is
found locally or globally, offers opportunities for each of us to have a couple of important needs
met. The first need is to belong – to feel connected to others and to feel part of something larger
than ourselves. The second need is to contribute, to play our part in community building, in
place-making, ensuring that others have the opportunities and resources that enable them to
belong and contribute as well.

But there is a third human need that begs our attention: healthy human development. This
need, perhaps less well known in community contexts, is each individual’s need to develop, to
self-actualize, to reach our full potential. We know that children develop. But ample research
shows that adults also have the potential to continue developing throughout their lives. Harvard
University’s eminent developmental researcher Robert Kegan calls this the “hidden curriculum
of adult life.”3 There is much evidence that adults not only have the potential to develop, but
that our very health and well-being depend on it. In adults, as in children, the failure to develop
is the failure to thrive.

Why is this important for community-builders? Think about it. We know that an important aspect
of community is to develop systems and structures that serve the entire population. It is a task
taken on by local elected officials, planners, policy makers, health professionals and
administrators, and committed groups of engaged citizens, seeking positive changes that build
healthy community. The issues are many: housing, food security, employment, the economy,
health amp; community services, education amp; literacy, the justice system, environmental
sustainability, and healthy public policy - to name but a few. And, ideally, the people working so
hard to address those issues have already successfully negotiated much of the developmental
curriculum of adult life. Ideally, their cognitive development, their emotional development, their
values development, their moral amp; ethical development, their interpersonal development –
again, to name but a few – is stretching toward the higher levels of human capacity since this
will be reflected in the policies and systems that shape our shared lives in community.
My colleagues and I often use a simple three-level framework to demonstrate adults’ potential
for development. In this framework, the first level is called selfcentric – here, my focus is on
getting my own needs met; I’m not yet very skilled at taking into account the needs of others.
You may also recognize this level as “egocentric.” We all know children who are at the
selfcentric level – for a kid, it’s developmentally appropriate to be egocentric. But when I ask
groups if they know any adults still negotiating this level of development, heads nod. You may
know some too.

The next level is sociocentric (or ethnocentric). Research shows that most people in the world –
including Canadians – are still negotiating this level of the developmental curriculum – in at least
some important areas of their overall development. But there is evidence that ever-increasing
numbers of people are shifting their perspective to the worldcentric level, gaining the capacity to
express care and concern for all life. This is good news for both local and global citizenship
since, not surprisingly, responsibility and response-ability are going to look different at each
stage of development.

Community development is an important contributor to human development. Building healthy,
thriving communities helps to foster healthy, thriving people. And vice versa. For a community to
stretch toward its fullest potential, we need to engage our best thinking, our deepest values, our
highest morals and ethics, our greatest capacities to solve complex problems. As more of us
reach the worldcentric level of development, we expand our capacity to express care and
concern for all people, in all contexts, not only in our own community, but all over the world.

Developing Community, Developing Ourselves:
The Challenge of Change
When I ask community change agents what draws them to this kind of work, and what sustains
them when the going gets tough, I hear a common response; “We want to change the world,”
they say. But, increasingly, community developers understand that their own development is an
important part of the change equation. They understand that Gandhi’s advice to “be the change
you want to see in the world” applies as much to our own inner development as our actions in
the world. It’s not just what we do. It’s also how we be. And what we’re becoming.

We are becoming the change we want to see in the world. Evidence can be found in our expanding
capacity to make meaningful connections with people who live on the other side of the country, or
the other side of the world. Let’s celebrate that capacity, knowing that the ability to engage with
people much different than ourselves is a reflection of healthy growth and development in our
mental models, our values, our worldviews. It’s a reflection of our growing ability to take diverse
perspectives into account. And it’s a reflection of our growing capacity for care and compassion for
all people, despite our myriad differences. With this capacity we are catalyzed to offer help when
war and famine cause children to starve, when tsunamis, cyclones and earthquakes shatter lives
on the other side of the globe. This is a good news story. And it’s our emerging story.

Which leads me, once again, to the questions posed at the beginning of this paper: how do we
learn to not only welcome and embrace change, but to intentionally cultivate healthy change?
How can we invest our time and resources in those areas where healthy change can most
productively flow and grow? And what are the most effective levers for healthy change?

In response, I offer six propositions for consideration:
1. Adopt a comprehensive and inclusive orienting vision for fostering positive change:
I suggest the orienting vision of “healthy people in healthy communities.”
2. Invest in community development as a practical way to foster healthy people in healthy
communities. Community development is a vital element of health promotion and prevention
– affecting health and well-being throughout the country, the continent, the world.
3. Pay attention to the multiple and interconnected determinants of health: social,
economic, environmental, physical, psychological, spiritual and cultural. Community
building efforts are most effective and sustainable when they address “the whole person
in the whole community.”
4. Also pay attention to multiple and interconnected dimensions of change: again,
social, economic, environmental, physical, psychological, spiritual and cultural. And,
again, addressing the whole person in the whole community.
5. Make response-ability both a personal and a community capacity building goal.
6. Pay attention not only to fostering health and well-being, but also healthy human
development. Set a goal to become a developmentally–attentive community.

For community leaders, capacity-builders, health professionals, policy makers, and engaged
citizens committed to cultivating healthy change - the challenge ahead is personal, local and
global. As individuals, we can and must be the change we want to see in the world. To be
effective we must pay attention to our own development as well as that of our community.

And, together, as a community, we can also be the change we want to see in the world. In fact,
grassroots community building – addressing all of the factors affecting people, place, and
potential – has never been more important than it is today. By building healthy local community,
we foster health, well-being and healthy development in all of our citizens. And, paradoxically,
by building healthy local community we can indeed change the world.

Are we up for this challenge?
Tam Lundy
May, 2008 ]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:06:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/390541 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/390543 Worth Playing:

A survey conducted by Information Solutions Group, revealed tens of millions of disabled consumers have gravitated to "casual" video games as a source of relief or distraction from their infirmities, as well as a sense of accomplishment or belonging.



According to the survey, more than one in five (20.5%) players of casual video games have a physical, mental or developmental disability; this compares to 15.1% of the American population overall who are disabled, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Over three quarters of the more than 2,700 disabled consumers who participated in the study described their disabilities as "moderate" or "severe," and the benefits to, and methods of play by, disabled gamers vary considerably from those of non-disabled casual gamers.

Compared to the casual gamer population as a whole (which industry estimates peg at 300 million to 400 million players worldwide), those with disabilities play more frequently, for more hours per week, and for longer periods of time per gaming session. They also report that they experience more significant benefits from playing and view their game-playing activity as a more important factor in their lives than do non-disabled consumers.

A total of 13,296 casual game players responded to the survey, with 2,728 respondents (20.5%) identifying themselves as "mildly" (22%), "moderately" (54%) or "severely" (24%) disabled. Of those, 46% indicated that their primary disability was physical, 29% said it was mental, and 25% stated they had a developmental or learning disability. Over two thirds (69%) of disabled respondents were female, and a third (35%) of all respondents had another person -- parent, adult offspring, spouse, guardian or caregiver -- assist them in taking the survey.

The most common types of disabilities and medical conditions cited by respondents, by category, were:

Physical: Rheumatoid Arthritis/Osteoarthritis (14%); Fibromyalgia (11%); Multiple Sclerosis (7%).
Mental: Moderate/Severe Depression (41%); Bipolar Disorder (16%); Anxiety Disorder (15%).
Developmental/Learning: ADD/ADHD (46%); Autism (15%); Dyslexia (11%).
The majority (61%) of those survey respondents with a physical disability are age 50 or older, while slightly more than half (52%) of those with a developmental/learning disability are under 18 years of age.

Fully 94% of disabled players of casual games said they believe playing casual games "provides physical or mental benefits" -- compared to 80% of casual game players overall. The most common benefits cited by disabled gamers (when asked to choose as many as applied) were stress relief (81%), mood lifting (69%), distraction from issues related to disability (66%), improved concentration (59%) and mental workouts (58%). Interestingly, the top benefits varied significantly based on the type of disability; the top three benefits by disability type were:

Physical: Stress relief (84%) and distraction from issues related to disability (73%)
Mental: Stress relief (87%) and mood-lifting (78%)
Developmental/Learning: Improved concentration (79%) and improved coordination/manual dexterity (73%)
Those with developmental/learning disabilities cited learning (pattern recognition, spelling, typing skills) far more often (61%) than those with disabilities that were mental (26%) or physical (23%).

Furthermore, 77% of disabled players said playing casual games provides them with "additional benefits over and above what a typical non-disabled player might experience."

Of the "additional benefits," responses were numerous and varied, often citing deeper sensations of achievement and "belonging," or distraction from loneliness and/or chronic pain. As one respondent put it, "Our son with Attention Deficit Disorder does not really remember he has a disability when he is playing." Dr. Carl Arinoldo, a Stony Brook, New York-based psychologist of 25 years' experience who has treated patients with a range of physical and mental disabilities, agrees: "With some forms of depression, a person may be very focused on something that clearly amounts to a misperception of reality. So the chance to distance themselves from the perceived negative situation and relax may allow them to think more clearly and consider the situation later in a more realistic manner."

Gary Robinson, a 58-year-old North Carolina resident with severe physical disabilities, states "Games like Bejeweled and Peggle, with simple controls that are also mentally challenging and engaging are ideal for me, because my mind moves as quickly as the next guy's but I type with a mouth-stick. In some ways, games like these are the greatest thing that's appeared on the computer scene for people like me."

Among all disabled gamers, nearly two thirds (64%) said they play casual games every day, and an additional 28% play several times per week. By comparison, 57% of casual game players overall say they play daily. In terms of time spent playing, disabled gamers are more "avid consumers" than the average casual game player:

60% of disabled gamers play casual games for five or more hours per week, (vs. 52% of casual gamers overall)
40% of disabled gamers play for 10 or more hours per week (vs. 29% of overall casual gamers)
24% of disabled gamers play for 16 or more hours per week (vs. 13% of overall casual gamers)
Gary Robinson estimates he spends four or more hours each day playing casual games. "Let's just say that playing the games helps my whole well-being; sometimes they give me a direct and immediate purpose in life, and that's an important sensation to have every so often."

When asked to choose the single most frequent time for playing casual games, 26% of survey respondents with physical disabilities, and 29% of those with mental disabilities, indicated "late at night, before bed," compared to just 11% of those with developmental/learning disabilities. The latter group indicated weekends (30%) was the time they played most often. This is presumed to be due to the large number of children in the category.

Almost half (44%) of all disabled gamers indicated that they had recommended playing casual games to others with significant disabilities, and more than a tenth of respondents (11%) said that a "physician, psychiatrist, physical therapist or other medical professional had prescribed or recommended playing casual games as part of the treatment" for their disability.

As for solitary versus companion game play, 44% of disabled gamers said they played casual games with other people at least part of the time. Of those, more than one in four (28%) said they played casual games with other disabled individuals. Among respondents with developmental/learning disabilities specifically, 60% said they played casual games with other people.

When asked to pick their favorite categories of casual games, disabled gamers' choices closely mirrored those of non-disabled players, with "puzzle" (84%), "word and trivia" (61%) and "arcade" (59%) being the three most-cited genres. "Card" (54%) and "hidden object" (51%) games rounded out the top five categories among disabled gamers.

Only 26% of disabled casual gamers said they also play traditional, "hardcore" video games; among those respondents with physical disabilities specifically, that figure dropped to 18%. Among all disabled gamers who also play hardcore games, 25% said they played hardcore games on a daily basis -- compared to 64% who play casual games daily.

This international research was conducted by Information Solutions Group (ISG; http://www.infosolutionsgroup.com) for PopCap Games. These results are based on online surveys completed by 2,728 respondents randomly selected between April 2 and April 17, 2008. In theory, in 19 cases out of 20, the results will differ by no more than 1.9 percentage points from what would have been obtained by seeking out and polling all PopCap.com users. Survey subjects were presented with exhaustive lists of various types of disabilities by category in order to assist in accurately categorizing themselves. For the purpose of this survey, a disabled person is defined as one who has a significant medical condition or a physical, mental, developmental or learning impairment/disability. This includes, but is not limited to, medical conditions that affect mobility, vision, hearing and learning. It also includes chronic diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue syndrome; mental disorders, such as depression or anxiety; and developmental disabilities, such as ADD/ADHD (recently re-diagnosed as AD/HD -- Predominantly Inattentive Type), dyslexia and autism.]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:06:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/390543 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/375829
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 173]]> Wed, 21 May 2008 09:05:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/375829 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/372995
If you have any questions or concerns, please contact PREVNet's Administrative Coordinator at: 613-533-2362 or 1-866-372-2495 or via email at: prevnet@queensu.ca.]]> Sat, 17 May 2008 10:05:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/372995 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/368685 http://recoveryourjoy.blogspot.com/:

One of the many things I love about C.C. is he enjoys entertaining as much as I do. Last night was no exception. We were eight for dinner. My sister J.T. and her husband, and two other couples.

The evening began with a bang when one of the guests sat on an antique wooden chair and it collapsed beneath him. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt though he did have to put up with our laughter and teasing for the rest of the evening. He managed to do it with equanimity and grace -- though he did keep repeating everything he said three times!

What struck me last night was the sense of familiarity. As though that scene was one I'd experienced many times in my life. It felt like a place where I belong.

Belonging and what it means -- to Be and to Long for something -- has always fascinated me. My parents' nomadic lifestyle uprooted us several times, two of them across the Atlantic to distant shores. For my mother, those journeys took her to a place where she found her 'belonging', at home amidst her familial roots, at home with the language and culture of her birth. I've often wondered where my father found his sense of belonging. At the age of nine he was 'sent away', across the sea and further yet across Canada to Gravelburg, Saskatchewan where he attended a Jesuit school. It was a long way from his home in London. For a child, that uprooting left him without family, without a home where he belonged. Perhaps that is why he held his family so close to his heart. He filled his longing for belonging in the familial structure he had never known growing up.

John O'Donohue, Celtic poet, scholar and philosopher speaks to what he calls the deepest calling of our soul: the longing to belong, in his book, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong. He says, "To be human is to belong. Belonging is a circle that embraces everything; if we reject it, we damage our nature. The word 'belonging' holds together the two fundamental aspects of life: Being and Longing, the longing of our Being and the being of our Longing."

In the Tao, everything is connected to everything. As humans, we are connected through the act of creation and the rites of passage we must all travel to come into this world. We arrive, unaware of the importance of our being part of the human race, of the significance of our soul's journey in relation to the world around us. As we grow, we begin to find the meaning, or maybe not, in our journey. We begin to understand our soul's yearning for belonging and look for ways to soothe the ache of not always knowing where we belong.

Sometimes, we know little of what we must do to feel like we belong because we've never known a sense of belonging. And sometimes, in our attempts to break free of places where we don't belong, we carve out our own unique place in the world that keeps us apart and unsettles our belonging. We can't see in our struggle that where we belong is not dependent upon where our roots were set, or where our familial bonds kept us captive. Where we belong is where our spirits find peace and comfort. Belonging is not a place. It is the spirit's voice within us, calling us home to our soul's journey back to where we were always meant to be, back home within ourselves.

One of the couples last night spoke of their roots set deep into the prairie soils generations ago. T.A.'s family came to these lands as homesteaders four generations ago. D.A. doesn't question how deep her roots are. As far back as the family stories are told, her family has always lived upon these lands.

Deep roots. A known sense of belonging. A being at one with the lands that support her, ground her and give her life rich and vibrant meaning.

As I sat at the table with evening light deepening into night, candle light casting a golden glow upon the smiling faces gathered around me, I felt my belonging settle into knowing.

This is where I belong. Gathered around a table laden with food and wine and surrounded by loving people. A place where friends meet to exchange stories and laughter. A place where caring for each other deepens as we see each other in the light of friendship strengthening with our shared experiences.

In creating an environment for others to find a place where they belong, a place to come home to for however long they stay, my longing to be accepted is soothed, my yearning for belonging eased.

It is here I belong, in this place called home, a place where I am free to be me, in all my beauty, warts and all. A place where C.C. and I grow together as our unique and individual journey homeward frees us to be all we're meant to be. As we create memories that belong to the unique story of our love growing ever deeper, we become rooted in the truth of who we are, together and apart.

This is my place to belong. My place to come home to. This is my soul's journey into love with all I am and all I can be when I am at home where I belong within me. It is here that love grows. It is here I belong.

The question is: Are you at home longing for belonging, or have you come home to the wonder and joy of being right where you belong?]]> Fri, 09 May 2008 09:05:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/368685 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/364949
"So one day after my divorce I'm sitting and thinking, oh my god, what's going to happen if I go to hell because nobody loves me? So I made a wish. I said please let me be somewhere where a hundred people will say I love you. And it was here [Downtown Eastside of Vancouver]. Everyday somebody says I love you or people on the street blow me kisses or touch their heart, you know, from across the street and these are signs that mean I love you. I don't know what I did to my parents for them to hate me, but let me tell you this: being here, around people that love me is everything. I'm probably going to die alone, but I know that one hundred men and women love me for me. I tell you, this is the place I got my wish." Helen Hill (bottom)

]]> Thu, 01 May 2008 10:05:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/364949 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/362897
This issue explores the theme of altruism with particular
reference to L’Arche as a kind of laboratory for what we might
learn about it. L’Arche is built on the altruism or generosity of
the many young volunteers who come as assistants to share life
with people with developmental disabilities in its homes and
programs. These young people accept a lifestyle that is radically
different from their peers who are not in L’Arche. They come
for a year, or two, and some stay much longer. What motivates
and sustains this kind of generosity?

Beth Porter – For your PhD research you interviewed over
100 L’Arche assistants across Canada. What did you learn
about altruism from them?...

Pamela Cushing – I anticipated that many assistants
would name altruistic motives as the reason they came to
L’Arche. In fact, most of them
were uncomfortable with the
term “altruism” and even strenuously
corrected me, saying in
various ways, ‘actually, for me
this is not about sacrifice. It’s
about living a full life.’ I was
struck by their thinking that if
they got something positive out
of the experience, this cancelled
the altruism in their initial motive. A massive American
study done by sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests this pattern may be true of our culture in general.
He found even people who gave significant time to volunteering
were highly reticent about making altruistic claims,
preferring to attribute their actions to personal satisfaction
or happenstance. I think there’s danger in negating altruism
as part of their motives. Pure altruism is rather rare.
I discovered a blend of motivating elements in each assistant’s
story: 1) an altruistic impulse; 2) self-interest – an expectation
of growing and learning by giving of themselves, or an
expectation of adventure through living in a different country
and with new people; and 3) a pragmatic element – coming to
L’Arche made sense at the time. These motives didn’t usually
function as discreet variables but worked in concert.
One assistant said he saw L’Arche as a practical setting in
which he could embody what he believed from his faith and his
studies but had not been able to live out in a university setting.
He saw ‘doing good’ – being altruistic – as part of his identity,
and being a L’Arche assistant gave him a context to live this
identity. Another assistant had been involved in community
service but then went through a period of what she called
“chaotic, destructive self-indulgence.” She said, “I felt L’Arche
could be the moral compass I needed.” It could help her return
to the person that she wanted to be, which included serving
others. In both these stories self-interest and altruism are in a
productive tension, the fruit of which can be healthy service in a
context where the caregiver’s awareness of what is being
received enhances the dignity of the service.
What discourages altruism among young people?
Indifference, and cynicism. When young people are recognized
and rewarded in an interpersonal, social way, not just by
adults but by their peers, for other knowledge and other experiences,
that dampens their desire to be part of social change. If
everyone in your Facebook network is discussing the best songs,
latest parties, and blogs, you are not going to get much recognition
for trying to talk about your latest volunteer venture.
Cynicism is a seductive attitude because it
allows us to be passive. It feeds hopelessness by making problems
seem so big and systems so impervious to our resistance
that we allow ourselves to do nothing at all.
How can these negative influences be countered and altruism
nourished?
There are some encouraging attempts to address these attitudes,
either through giving young people opportunities for
practical action that is valorized, or through research that
relates, for instance, to character education. In the latter area,
the Templeton Foundation funds a number of studies that
examine, for example, how goodness and personal and social
responsibility are nurtured in young people, and how competence
in ethical and moral reasoning is developed.
Part of the magic I observed at L’Arche is that it gives assistants
the needed relational context in which their compassion
or generosity are recognized. Assistants talked a lot about the
importance of being part of a community of support that
includes the people with developmental disabilities. There are
those little moments where you can decide to do the bare minimum
or you can decide to do more. Part of us wants not to do
more. If your co-workers feel frustrated and don’t share the
desire that you have, it can be hard. Most individuals have a
very difficult time continuing to give unless they have a supportive
community around them that helps them feel nourished
and stay true to their ideals. This is especially important in
face of indifference from the broader society.
The ability to get behind the label and to come to know
the person – an ability children have – usually needs to be
relearned in adulthood. Knowing people is key. There’s no ‘the
disabled’ in a L’Arche experience. It’s Peter, it’s Roy. And then
you see they are just like you. L’Arche assistants acquire this
new learning within a powerful counter-cultural setting and
they often have a sense of having grown. This can be a strong
source of motivation. L’Arche regards such relations as normal,
and it needs to be careful in so doing, that it does not dampen
the assistant’s initial sense of radicalism and heightened awareness
of the social injustice to which people with disabilities are
subject in so many little ways.
Anthropologists are increasingly recognizing the importance
and complex diversity of the particulars within a culture, rather
than trying to find cultural universals that tend to gloss over
their internal differences. Sherry Ortner, for instance, says the
danger for social scientists is to see the ‘other’ as a category.
You have to see the other person as having the same mixed,
complicated motives and desires as you have, whatever their
ethnicity, class, education, ability, religion. One-on-one
exposure to others is a way to see people as human beings,
not bundled together and labelled.
In my own youth I had exposure to a lot of different people
through travel and volunteer work that my parents did. This
kind of experience helps counter stereotyping. Jay and I ask
ourselves as parents, are we doing enough to model service, to
introduce our child to those who are different, and to nourish
the roots of empathy.]]> Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:04:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/362897 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/356209 ► Develop a language of belonging to inform the emerging dialogue on belonging
► Celebrate diversity in meaningful ways to foster a culture of intentional understanding
► Nurture leadership capacity among youth with disabilities who are eager to be ‘Ambassadors of Belonging’
► Create opportunities for belonging at the local level through community networks
► Cultivate strong, resilient and diverse relationships at all stages of life
► Organize team games and group activities to foster relationships based on a common goal
► Develop inclusive and accessible online technologies that reinforce face-to-face interaction without replacing it
► Encourage story telling as an effective way to develop understanding, acceptance and trust
► Focus on schools as a primary site for promoting a culture of inclusion and understanding
► Emphasize a spirit of commonality and integration rather than difference and segregation among community centres and Independent Living Resource Centres
► Invite family members to contribute and share in initiatives that celebrate youths’ abilities
► Commit to a dialogue on belonging that is proactive, intentional and long-term
► Recognize youth with disabilities as vital companions and guides on the road to understanding belonging]]> Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:04:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/356209 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/355363
Insecurity is, I think, at the heart of one of the great human dichotomies: the need for belonging and the need to be oneself, a real person, fully alive. In the fulfillment of the need for belonging, is a certain surrender of the self to the group, the community, the culture that provide a set of received truths. But to go further in the search human fulfillment and inner freedom we need to reflect on the certitudes of the group, even to question them and take the risk of going against the grain.

It is when we act as individuals, allowing our deepest selves to arise, that what I call the principle of insecurity is most evident: we choose to live a certain insecurity and question things held to be true. However, to be insecure in this way is also, I believe, an important quality for the group or community; the things the group holds dear can be a looked at, reflected on, questioned, and deepened, the better to find the truths contained therein. Let us look at this in more detail...

In many countries of the world, the family, the village, and the tribe still remain strong; people feel bonded to one another. This bonding gives security; people know what to do and what to believe. Elders or leaders have a real power and authority. If someone falls sick, they are looked after. But there are disadvantages to such strong bonding. Members of the community sacrifice their individual consciousness and freedom at the altar of security and unity, the altar of bonding. For some, this submission can cause pain, particularly for those who are young and ambitious, who do not want to be enslaved in ancient traditions and in the collective poverty that is embraced by many such communities. The human urge is to liberate ourselves from what we perceive to be oppressive belonging. We want to find freedom but we want to find it within some kind of structure.

Among humankind, the family represents the basic social unit. However, everywhere we look, this basic place of belonging is breaking down. Let me take the country where I live, France, as an example. In Paris, one out of every two marriages ends in divorce and in the rest of France, one out of three goes the same way. Statistics show that everywhere, more and more people are frightened of commitment.

And why is this happening? I believe it is because our Western societies have place the power, rights, and needs of the individual above those of the group. We have developed societies based on the principle of competition; people must work hard in order to succeed. Now, in a certain context, this can be healthy, particularly since a group can stifle both personal consciousness and freedom, as well as the development of one’s gifts and capacities. Competition stretches our capacities but a focus on individual values and rights can push us into a terrible loneliness.

This is a loneliness that can bring some people, especially those who feel ill-equipped to live in the competitive world or who have never truly belonged in a family, to the depths of despair, where they lose their sense of self and of meaning. This is a place of insecurity at its most profound, insecurity in its most negative aspect.

But this loneliness can also cause us to seek out new ways of belonging, in places where we are helped to find a meaning of our lives, places where we may live out an idea, where we may experience a true bonding with others. In the same way, this loneliness can cause us to search for new ways of bringing greater peace and justice to our society, to struggle with and for those who have been downtrodden, so that they may find an equitable place in society. This is a loneliness that will push some to seek new ways of healing the broken and those who cry out in pain; it will push others to seek truth and a new relationship with God.

A society based on the Darwinian "survival of the fittest," where we all fend for ourselves, has serious disadvantages. It promotes a strong, aggressive attitude and the need to win. It can paralyze the development of the heart, prevent healthy cooperation among people, and promote rivalry and enmity. It tends to marginalize those who are weak and even those who reject individualistic principles and want to live in and for a society based on truth and justice for all. In a society that encourages an ethics of economy, of winning, and of power, it is important to be admired. In such a society, an ethics of justice, solidarity, and cooperation, and ethics of the common good, can quickly fade into the background. Individual success is all that matters. How can Western societies encourage the development of personal consciousness, freedom, and creativity and, at the same time, help us to not fall into self-centered attitudes and motivations? How can we orient the development of the individual towards works of justice, the struggle for peace, and helping others to develop their gifts and find their place in society? ]]> Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:04:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/355363 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/350639 ]]> Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:03:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/350639 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/350641
- Jean Vanier, Our Journey Home, p. 164 ]]> Sat, 29 Mar 2008 04:03:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/350641 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/344657
The Art of Living Foundation was inspired by the programs of spiritual leader and humanitarian His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that began in 1982. It has been a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and humanitarian organization in the U.S. since 1989. Accredited as a United Nations Non-Governmental organization in 1996, it is now one of the UN's largest volunteer-based NGOs. It works in special consultative status with the UN's Economic and Social Council, participating in a variety of committees and activities relating to health, education, sustainable development, conflict resolution, and disaster relief.

Our Mission

To strengthen the individual and society by offering programs inspired by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar that eliminate stress, create a sense of belonging, restore human values, develop life to its full potential, and encourage people from all backgrounds to come together in celebration, wisdom, and service.

The Foundation engages in a wide array of educational and humanitarian programs that uplift individuals, make a difference in local communities, and foster global change.]]> Sun, 16 Mar 2008 12:03:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/344657 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/342721 An excerpt from Biodiverse Resistance:

In a comment on another disability blog someone recently mentioned the website "Disability is Natural", so "naturally" i went to have a look at it...

I had actually seen someone wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Disability is Natural" and the red and green apple logo at 2 different disability events (i believe it was the Liberty Festival in London, either in 2005 or 2006, and the protests against the Welfare Reform Bill at the Labour party conference in Manchester in 2006), but hadn't realised it was a website. At the latter, i think i tried to argue with him about the slogan, but didn't get very far with it...



I see the point that the slogan is trying to make - that disabled people are a natural part of human diversity, and deserve to be accepted and accommodated rather than "cured" or eliminated, and of course I wholeheartedly support that - that's the basic foundation of the social model of disability. But the use of the slogan "Disability is Natural" betrays a clear lack of understanding of what the social model is truly about.

Under the social model, a clear distinction is made between impairment and disability, which the medical system and the individualised models it promotes conflate into one thing. Impairment is a physical or mental difference which prevents a person from being able to carry out daily activities considered "normal" for humans to be able to do - eg. standing/walking, seeing, hearing, feeding oneself, reading and writing, understanding verbal and non-verbal forms of communication as used by most people, etc. Disability is the lack of equality in society caused, not by impairments themselves, but by the failure or refusal of society to accommodate people with impairments - eg. by not making buildings accessible to wheelchair users, not providing information in formats accessible to people with visual or hearing impairments or learning disabilities like dyslexia, not allowing people who need help with personal care to have choice and control over what support they recieve, assuming that everyone "should" be able to understand all forms of communication in the same way, etc.

(It's worth noting that, while impairment is therefore something with a "concrete", outside-of-society existence, and disability something that exists because of and depending on social factors, what is and isn't an impairment is still contested, especially in the neurological area, where the distinctions between, for example, preferring one method of communication over another, and actually being unable to use one form of communication, get kind of blurred - and what constitutes an impairment still depends to some extent on what is considered "normal" for people to be able to do - eg. dyslexia wouldn't have been an impairment for many people in societies without widespread literacy. But this is a tangent...)

Physical and mental diversity is natural. Impairment is natural. But the social model states quite emphatically that disability isn't natural - it's socially constructed, and can be socially deconstructed. (It's also worth noting here that being socially constructed, despite what a lot of people seem to think, doesn't necessarily mean that something "isn't real". It's very real, but it's society and not nature that makes it real.)

Several quotes from the disability history page of the website make it clear that, when the author says "disability", ze actually means "impairment":

From the beginning, mythical perceptions and stereotypical attitudes have portrayed individuals with disabilities as different, aberrant, deficient, incompetent, and more. But like gender and ethnicity, a disability is simply one of many natural characteristics of being human... There have always been people with disabilities and differences in the world, and there always will be.

...

Some people are born with conditions we label as disabilities; others may acquire a disability through an accident or illness; and, if we live long enough, many of us will acquire a disability through the aging process. Disability does not discriminate!

...

But the problem never has been the disability; the problem is (and has always been) society's beliefs about disability. People with disabilities are not broken, and they don't need to be fixed!

Old attitudes and perceptions—not the disability itself—constitute the greatest obstacle facing people with disabilities. This attitudinal barrier may not always be visible to the naked eye, but it rears its ugly head across all environments and results in children and adults with disabilities being socially isolated, physically segregated, and excluded from the mainstream of American society.

Of course, in a social model understanding of the term "disability", "attitudes and perceptions" are "the disability itself"...

(edit: the author is Kathie Snow, who wants quotes to be attributed, and who is the non-disabled parent of a disabled son. I was kind of curious as to whether the author was a disabled person...)]]> Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:03:00 -0400 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/342721 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/341683
THIS BOOK IS ABOUT the liberation of the human heart from the tentacles of chaos and loneliness, and from those fears that provoke us to exclude and reject others. It is a liberation that opens us up and leads us to the discovery of our common humanity. I want to show that this discovery is a journey from loneliness to a love that transforms, a love that grows in and through belonging, a belonging that can include as well as exclude. The discovery of our common humanity liberates us from self-centered compulsions and inner hurts; it is the discovery that ultimately finds its fulfillment in forgiveness and loving those who are our enemies. It is the process of truly becoming human....

This book is not essentially about the formation and organization of society; it is not essentially political in scope. But since society is made up of individuals, as we open up to others and allow ourselves to be concerned with their condition, then the society in which we live must also change and become more open. We will begin to work together for the common good. On the other hand, if we commit ourselves to the making of a society in which we are concerned only with our own rights, then that society must become more and more closed in on itself. Where we do not feel any responsibility towards others, there is no reason for us to work harmoniously towards the common good.

Over the last thirty-four years, my experience has been primarily with men and women who have intellectual disabilities. In August 1964, I founded l’Arche: a network of small homes and communities where we live together, men and women with intellectual disabilities and those who feel called to share their lives with them. Today, there are over one hundred l’Arche communities in the world. Living in l’Arche, I have discovered a lot about loneliness, belonging and the inner pain that springs from a sense of rejection. Community life with men and women who have intellectual disabilities has taught me a great deal about what it means to be human. To some, it may sound strange for me to say that it is the weak, who have been my teachers. I hope that I can reveal a bit of what I have learned - and am still learning - about being human, and about helping others to discover our common humanity.

It was only in l’Arche that I really discovered what loneliness is. There were probably many times before l’Arche when I had felt lonely but until then I had not seen loneliness as a painful reality, maybe because I had succeeded in keeping myself busy by doing things. Perhaps I had never named it or needed to give it a name.

When I started welcoming those with intellectual disabilities into l’Arche, men and women from institutions, psychiatric hospitals, dysfunctional families, I began to realize how lonely they were. I discovered the terrible feeling of chaos that comes from extreme loneliness.

A sense of loneliness can be covered up by the things we do as we seek recognition and success. This is surely what I did as a young adult. It is what we all do. We all have this drive to do things that will be seen by others as valuable, things that make us feel good about ourselves and give us a sense being alive. We only become aware of loneliness at times when we cannot perform or when imagination seems to fail us.

Loneliness can appear as a faint dis-sease, an inner dis-satisfaction, a restlessness in the heart.

Loneliness comes at any time. It comes in times of sickness or when friends are absent; it comes during sleepless nights when the heart is heavy, during times of failure at work or in relationships; it comes when we lose trust in ourselves and in others. In old age, loneliness can rise up and threaten to overwhelm us. At such times, life can lose its meaning. Loneliness can feel like death.

When people are physically well, performing creatively, successful in their lives, loneliness seems absent. But I believe that loneliness is something essential to human nature; it can only be covered over, it can never actually go away. Loneliness is a part of being human, because there is nothing in existence that can completely fulfill the needs of the human heart.

Loneliness in one form is, in fact, essential to our humanity. Loneliness can become a source of creative energy, the energy that drives us down new paths to create new things or to seek more truth and justice in the world.

Artists, poets, mystics, prophets, those who do not seem to fit into the world or the ways of society, are frequently lonely. They feel themselves to be different, dissatisfied with the status quo and with mediocrity; dissatisfied with our competitive world where so much energy goes into ephemeral things. Frequently, it is the lonely man or woman who revolts against injustice and seeks new ways. It as if a fire is burning within them, a fire fuelled by loneliness.

Loneliness is the fundamental force that urges mystics to a deeper union with God. For such people, loneliness has become intolerable but, instead of slipping into apathy or anger, they use the energy of loneliness to see God. It pushes them towards the absolute. An experience of God quenches the thirst for the absolute but at the same time, paradoxically, whets it; because this is an experience that can never be total; by necessity, the knowledge of God is always partial. So loneliness opens up mystics to a desire to love each and every human being as God loves them.

Loneliness, then, can be a force for good. More frequently, however, loneliness, loneliness shows other, less positive faces. It can be a source of apathy and depression, and even of a desire to die. It can push us into escapes and addictions in the need to forget our inner pain and emptiness. This apathy is how loneliness most often shows itself in the elderly and those with disabilities.

It is loneliness we find in those who fall into depression, who have lost the sense of meaning in their lives, who are asking the questions born of despair: What is left?

I once visited a psychiatric hospital that was a kind of warehouse of human misery. Hundreds of children with severe disabilities were lying, neglected, on their cots. There was a deadly silence. Not one of them was crying. When they realize nobody cares, that nobody will answer them, children no longer cry. It takes too much energy. We cry out only when there is hope that someone may hear us.

Such loneliness is born of the most complete and utter depression, from the bottom of the deepest pit in which the human soul can find itself. The loneliness that engenders depression manifests itself as chaos. There is confusion and coming out of this confusion there can be a desire for self-destruction, for death. So, loneliness can become agony, a scream of pain. There is no light, no consolation, no touch of peace and of the joy life brings. Such loneliness reveals the true meaning of chaos.

Life no longer flows in recognizable patterns. For the person engulfed in this form of loneliness there is only emptiness, anguish, and inner agitation; there are no yearnings, no desires to be fulfilled, no desire to live. Such a person feels completely cut off from everyone and everything. It is a life turned in upon itself. All order is gone and those in this chaos are unable to relate or listen to others. Their lives seem to have no meaning. They live in complete confusion, closed up in themselves.

Thus loneliness can become such uncontrolled anguish that one can easily slip into the chaos of madness.

Let me tell you some stories, from my own experience, of the damage loneliness can create. I met Eric for the time in 1977. He was in the children’s ward of the local psychiatric hospital, 40 kilometres from the l’Arch community in Trosly, France. He was blind and deaf, as well as severely intellectually disabled; he could neither walk nor eat by himself. He came to l’Arche at the age of sixteen, full of tremendous needs, anguish, and fears. He often sat on the ground and whenever he felt someone close by, would stretch out his arms and try to clutch that person and to climb up on them. Once he succeeded in getting someone to hold him, his actions would become wild: he would lose control, struggling to be held and at the same time, jumping up and down. Holding Eric under these conditions became intolerable for anyone and, inevitably, it ended in a struggle, trying to get rid of him as he fought to remain held. He was someone who seemed to be living in immense anguish.

Anguish is inner agitation, a chaotic, unfocused energy. Anguish breaks sleep and other patterns and brings us to a place of confusion. To be lonely is to feel unwanted and unloved, and therefore unloveable. Loneliness is a taste death. No wonder some people who are desperately lonely lose themselves in mental illness or violence to forget their inner pain.

Eric was a terrible lonely young man. He needed to be loved but his needs were so great that no one person could fulfill them. It took a long time in l’Arche before he found inner peace. Little by little, as he learned to trust those around him, he discovered he was loved.

By way of contrast, Pierre was the seventh child in a family of thirteen, a man who had spent seven years in prison. I met him in Montreal. He had run away from home when he was twelve years old because he felt unnoticed and unwanted by his family. So, for a long time he lived with gangs on the street. In his heart, Pierre was a lonely man who felt lost. He had no where to go, no meaning in his life. He needed a friend, a teacher, someone who could help him find himself and a sense of purpose.

When he was sixteen Pierre committed a crime, which I believe was a cry for help. He went to jail for it. While he was there, he fell in love with a woman who regularly visited the prison. They got married and his life took on a new meaning; he finally had someone and something to live for. It was the beginning of his process of becoming human, and it happened because he felt loved.

In our l’Arche communities we experience that deep inner healing comes about mainly when people feel loved, when they have a sense of belonging. Our communities are essentially places where people can serve and create, and, most importantly, where they can love as well as be loved. This healing flows from relationships - it is not something automatic.

I have come to learn that embodied in this approach there is an important principle: the necessity of human commitment to the evolution of the new, the necessity of accepting constant movement as the key to our humanity and as the only road to becoming truly human.

In Eric and Pierre, there were chaos and disorder. Yet in the midst of the chaos there was a way out. Are not all our lives a movement from order to disorder, which in turn evolves into a new order?]]> Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:03:00 -0500 http://nurturebelonging.tigblog.org/post/341683 49.4 -123.549.4-123.5