Rain fell softly as I made my way up to the apartment door. A sharp knock was quickly answered, and I entered to find a small living room. My interviewee was a diminutive woman of middle-age with thick glasses perched low on her nose. In our pleasantries she was entirely ordinary, extending well-practiced courtesy. She reminded me of a librarian—warmly preoccupied in manner and business. Tea appeared from the kitchen, a long-haired cat curled up on the couch, and the rain quietly hissed against the windows. I moved through my standard interview checklist, dutifully reviewing research goals and informed consent.
We began with open-ended questions regarding her personality, relationships, and spirituality. Not five minutes into the encounter, it became clear that I was sitting with an individual of exemplary capacity for compassionate love.* Through her years of experience as a caregiver assistant to the disabled core members of L’Arche, Katherine came to possess an understanding of love in the broadest terms possible. There was no hint of the oversexed love caricature so prominent in popular culture. Her reflections were earthy and pragmatic, the result of many encounters with disabled individuals. Katherine’s was a kind of love-wisdom that emerged from years spent in L’Arche. Mostly, her narrative underlined the central idea that compassionate love is first about the disabled and their example:
I’ll tell you a turning point in terms of my understanding of God and L’Arche. I saw the gifts of the core members. When I got to Tampico, things were rough and I had to live in the house because we were so short of assistants. It was very difficult. One of the core members there was named Trent. He is blind and dual diagnosed. He was in an institution all his life, since he was one-year-old. I had this real love for Trent—a connection with him. I could calm him down, and I enjoyed him.
One night, after giving him his bath, he said, “You’re my friend, right?” I stopped for a minute. What occurred to me is how many people had bathed this man. Strangers. How many people didn’t see this sacred life in front of them, just wanted to get the job done. How many times he had to put up with that. What he’s really saying is, “Can I trust you? Are you safe? Are you my friend?” It occurred to me that this man probably lived through hell. Abuse. People being incredibly insensitive to him. And yet he can love. He can still trust.
I could never ask somebody to be my friend. I realized that I was in a transforming moment, knowing that I’m more broken than Trent. I could not be this vulnerable. I thought that I was being authentic, but realized he was teaching me something that I hadn’t learned. God was really present in that moment. That is when I could say that I didn’t choose L’Arche, but L’Arche chose me. That’s our spirituality.**
*An academic summary of compassionate love is found in Stephen Post’s “The Tradition of Agapé,” in Altruism and Altruistic Love: Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Dialogue, eds. Stephen Post, Lynn Underwood, Jeffrey Schloss, and William Hurlbut (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002): 51-63.
**Additional portions of Katherine’s story are published in Jack O. Balswick, Pamela King, and Kevin S. Reimer, The Reciprocating Self (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005).
