Hi everyone,

 Well today began two days of courses on CPR and First Aide.  As mundane as these courses sound, I believe them to be important as part of what I am living during my time here.  We all wonder what to do if someone has cardiac arrest, chokes, falls, etc.  I wonder even more when it comes to a core member. When someone lives with a disability and is not able to communicate in a way we might be able, what do you do.  How often I have been with one of the core members and heard them choke on their food, or sway back and forth, put a staple through their thumb, etc.  there is a whole protocol of what we must do as a way of helping them maintain their dignity in the midst of that moment.  It is also very interesting as we have a great instructor who is making the couse fun and very informing.

 This week we have been treated to some memories of Henri Nouwen who was a major part of the L'arche Daybreak story.  Today was his 10 year anniversary of his death.  It is amazing to hear how Henri's spirit has continued to be a part of this community.  He was such a wonderful and interesting man as well as quirky and unique.

 I have been reading his book "Adam" which speaks about one of the core members and how he was asked to take care of Adam's morning routine and all the fears and challenges and growth that brought to his life.  He spoke of fear of not being able to do justice to this request, but how he settled in and allowed Adam to become his friend and teacher.  I am finding myself in this book as I faced the same fears upon entering.  How do you enter into someone's personal space to help with showers, brushing teeth, helping them change, choosing clothes, building trust?  Am I capable? Will the core member trust me? I come from another world of meetings, homilies, parish events.  How would I fit in with a community of core members with various disabilities?  But then I looked around and realized that the other assistants, house leaders, support people all started like me.  I needed to trust in my own rythum of learning, of loving and allow myself to let go and let the core members teach me the ways of God's heart.  All else would fit in.  In one month here I have learned to let myself go and enter into lives of those I considered strangers.  I have opened my story in trust and entered in trust into the lives of others.  In my own fragility, my own pain, my own story, I connect with the heart of others.  It is really quite amazing.

 We seem like a real band of early disciples.  Lord why us? What good did you see in us to call us here? How can we love enough, be compassionate enough?  Again it is really not about doing, but being.  It is the moments of sharing the tears, the infectious laughs, the remembering.  It is living in the present moment, in the planning for the next gathering.  It is about being Christ for one another and remembering that Christ is so alive in the core members who want to love and be loved.  Arriving here was a dificult moment in my life, in my ministry.  It has been the hug, the slap on the arm, the encouraging word, the "When are coming back?" that has gently carressed my heart.  i continue to open myself to God's way on this journey and believe that wondrous things are happening inside. 

 Henri Nouwen was wonderful to look at his lfe in L'Arche and believe that God had called him here as a time of deepening his relationship.  I am trying to live that as faithfully and as open as I can.  Continue to pray for me!  Friday night we celebrate through Eucharist the 10th anniversary of henri's death at Dayspring.  I expect another night of memories.

Until next time.

Jeff