Participants Blog

Elif Shares about life in a L’Arche Community

In The Boat - September 2011

My initial impression of communal living before I departed for my placement was that it was going to be tough and possibly infringe upon my personal space. Actually, I had this wild idea that 20 people live in the same L’Arche house together! There grew a fear in me that I would not be able to compromise my independence in a house of so many people and I thought surely conflicts will arise. I suppose I didn’t initially see a whole lot of point in living in the house where you work, either. But still, I was optimistic and open to the experience. To my great surprise, it turned out that there are no more than 4 assistants (3 now) and 4 core members living together in my house, and not 20 people! What a relief! And the dynamic of respect for one’s personal space and trust for each other was also wonderful.
Yet, sleeping and eating in the house where you also work still didn’t quite fit well in my mind. What did it mean to be a live-in assistant? Where did community life fit with L’Arche, and why was it such an essential component? As the days went on, I came to realize that the space we shared as assistants and core members, the space of the house, of the community, rested on minute details and intricate human relationships. One person’s headache could affect the entire house, a missing signature on the medication records could mean a whole night’s suffering for a core member, a wrong tone of voice could influence how the next hour is spent. Everything, everything rests on a fine balance in a L’Arche home, everything is so interconnected. This kind of interconnectedness I had never seen so up close before, and it’s really fascinating because it almost works like parts in a mechanical machine, or the balance in nature. In fact, the rhythm and routines of the house started to become second nature to me after my first month in L’Arche. There came a time when I could sense how a core member was feeling by the way they walked, or what chores needed to be done before anyone said anything, and all was understood without much speaking. I began to understand why a core member or an assistant was behaving the way they do, I began to be more receptive and attentive. Little by little, I am chipping away at my own ego and becoming more giving to others, but also to myself, in a different way.

In his book “Global Conscience,” Douglas Roche often likens being human to understanding human relationships, and our relationship with the Earth, and knowing that we are responsible for our actions. L’Arche can be described as a mini planet, what Roche calls our “global home.” L’Arche is a “global home” on a smaller scale, a system where each action depends on another action, and each action is pregnant with patience and moral conscientiousness.
In effect, Roche’s theory that we are all responsible for our global home, the planet, applies also to a L’Arche home. In L’Arche we are all responsible for each other. When I first arrived I thought that the Assistants are responsible for the core members and that’s it, but it goes deeper. Since I have opened up my heart to being in mutual relationship with the core members, I know now that Pete will take care of me when I have a headache, or Joyce will help to clean the table when we are understaffed and desperately need an extra pair of hands. I am responsible for the well being of the core members as they are also for me.
We are living in a shared space, but more than that, we are living in communion as Jean Vanier had himself intended. We are living in a habitat just like nature, where each act is carefully thought out, and each act plants a seed for a tree to grow. Being a live-in assistant means more than just living where you work, it means interconnectedness, it means one person’s laughter is your happiness, it means there is time to cultivate human relationships, it means there is trust and love. That is communion.