Jean Vanier Thoughts

Heritage of Anger
The head of a company shouts unfairly at one of his employees. The employee feels bruised and wounded, but he does not dare answer back. He goes home seething with rage. Supper is not ready, so he screams at his wife, taking out all his anguish and suppressed anger on her. She does not dare answer back. Instead, when she sees her son about to take something from the fridge, she shouts at him. He says nothing; he is frightened of being smacked, so he goes out into the road and kicks a dog. The dog chases the cat, who runs and kills the mouse. This is the way that agression is passed on from person to person.
Our Journey Home, Novalis, p.25

Highs and Lows
In this universe, we have the high and the low, the sun and the mud, the beautiful and the hideous. Very quickly, we human beings divide ourselves into groups that clearly define pure and impure, good and bad, competent and incompetent, the virtuous and the sinners.
Our Jouney Home, Novalis, p.24

I won!
The need to win is often so strong. What fierce arguments we are prepared to enter into, just in order to prove that we are right!
Our Journey Home, Novalis, p.23

Cultural Models
Competition awakens energies; it helps people to develop their potential, and in so doing to develop the potential of society and of humanity. But while some people win, the majority lose. A culture thus develops in which those who do not succeed are rejected.
Our Journey Home, Novalis, p.20

Attention
Aristotle says that when a person does not feel loved, he or she seeks to be admired. To be neither loved nor admired is like death. People will do anything to find someone who will affirm them and make them feel valued.
Our Journey Home, Novalis, p.21

Religious Freedom
A minister of the Pentecostal Church of Russia once said to me: 'When we were in prison - Christians of different denominations - we were united. But now we are free, we no longer talk to each other. New walls stand between us. We learned how to live together in prison, but we don't know how to cope with freedom.'
Our Journey Home, Novalis, p.16

Incredible!
When I reflect on the Gospel vision, I find that it is incredible. It is a promise that we human beings can get together. It is a vision of unity, peace and acceptance. It is a promise that the walls between people and between groups can fall, but this will not be accomplished by force. It will come about through a change of heart - through transformation. It will begin at the bottom of the ladder of our societies.
Living Gently in a Violent World, p. 29

Minding the Gap
The story of L'Arche begins with a huge gap of injustice and pain. It is the gap between the so-called ''normal'' world and the people who have been pushed aside, put into institutions, excluded from our societies because they are weak and vulnerable. This gap is place of invitation in which we call people to respond.
Living Gently in a Violent World, p.2

Basic Instinct
The desire to be loved as a person, as someone unique, is at the source of the person's development, at the source of all self-esteem.
The Paradox of Disability, p. 20

Is There Any Room for Me?
People can justify a vision of society which is like a pyramid. This vision, however, is so often perverted, with those ''on top'' crushing those ''on the bottom''. Pyramidal societies become places of harsh competition and struggle. Jesus came to change this type of society into a body where each person has his or her place.
The Scandal of Service, p.56