Jean Vanier (1928~2019) and his meritorious life dedicated to living in community with people who had serious mental and/or physical “disabilities” was the topic of my Sept. 10 blog posting. This article is about one of Vanier’s main emphases: doing things with rather than just for people with serious needs.

In Harmony with Vanier

In his L’Arche homes, Vanier and those who followed his example, modeled what it means to treat people who have physical needs with respect. They chose to live with people who had serious mental and/or physical “handicaps,” not just to provide homes where they could be taken care of.

Before I learned about Vanier and L’Arche, I heard about similar institutions in Japan, institutions very much in harmony with the L’Arche movement Vanier began in France in 1964.

Two years before Vanier started the first L’Arche home, Fukui Tatsu’u (福井 達雨), a 32-year-old Japanese man, founded what became Shiyo Gakuen (止揚学園) as a home for physically challenged people.

Fukui, a 1956 graduate of the Department of Theology of the renowned Doshisha University in Kyoto, remained the head of Shiyo Gakuen until 2015.

During the years I taught at Seinan Gakuin, Fukui-sensei was invited many times to be the guest speaker during the “Christian Focus Week” special chapel services at the university and the junior-senior high school. He always emphasized doing things with the “needy,” not just doing things for them.

In 1976, Hisayama Ryoikuen (久山療育園), a similar facility, was established in the outskirts of Fukuoka City. Their emphasis from the beginning has been “living with” (tomo ni, pronounced toh-moh knee, in Japanese).

Doing something for others is expressed in Japanese as tame ni (pronounced tah-meh knee). These similar words express a great difference—and the former continues to be admirably modeled by Hisayama Ryoikuen, Shiyo Gakuen, and Jean Vanier’s L’Arche homes. 

From a Hisayama Ryoikuen poster emphasizing "living with"

In the Spirit of Vanier

I don’t know if he was influenced at all by Jean Vanier, but Chris Arnade is a fascinating man who spent a considerable amount of time in the 2010s living out the spirit of Vanier by constant contact with the “underclass” of American society.

Arnade (b. 1965) earned a Ph.D. in physics and then worked with a Wall Street bank for twenty years before becoming a freelance writer and photographer. In 2012 he began visiting a neighborhood in the South Bronx where he became friends with homeless people, sex workers, and addicts.

Arnade then traveled over 150,000 miles around the U.S., spending time with “back row” people in American society. Based upon his experiences, earlier this year Arnade published a book titled Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America.

I first learned about Arnade’s book by reading Peter Mommsen’s excellent interview with Arnade published in the Summer 2019 issue of Plough Quarterly. That interview and the book are both very impressive.

The first chapter of Arnade’s book is titled, “If You Want to Understand the Country, Visit McDonald’s.” He spent countless hours in McDonald’s restaurants talking with the people who are frequent visitors there.

Arnade concluded that many of the people he found at McDonald’s felt “excluded, rejected, and, most of all, humiliated.” He recognized that society has “denied many their dignity” (p. 284)—thus the title, and thrust, of his book.

At the end of his interview with Mommsen, Arnade emphasized, “Take time to listen to people. Give them respect.”

While most of us can’t, or won’t, choose to live in a L’Arche home or a similar institution, we can choose to spend more time with “needy” people of various sorts, seeking to show them dignity and respect by doing things with them rather than just doing something for them.

Dignity Votes

Tuesday is Election Day here in the U.S., so that is surely something worth considering in this last blog article before then. 

 

First of all, I encourage you to vote. (I trust you are duly registered.)

This year I have been an active part of the Northland Justice Coalition (NJC). (Northland refers to the area in the greater Kansas City area that is north of the Missouri River.) For the past couple of months NJC has been making telephone calls and going to people’s homes urging them to vote.

This activity is being called the Dignity Votes Campaign. Part of the dignity referred to is that of the people we have been contacting. 

Here is part of what I wrote for a flyer for the canvassers to hand to people they talk to or to leave at places where no one was home:

You are important. Voting is important. And it is important for you to vote on Nov. 4. Unfortunately, some people don’t think they are important or that their voice matters. But they are important—you are important. And their voice matters—your voice matters. That is why we urge you to vote on Nov. 4.

The NJC is also encouraging people not just to vote but to be “dignity voters”; that is, people who, for example, cast their ballots for candidates who will support raising the minimum wage so everyone can earn enough to live on.

Dignity voters will vote for candidates who support universal health care so everyone can get needed medical treatment.

In Missouri and 22 other states that means raising the income bar so more low-income people can get Medicaid.

Dignity voters are for candidates who will seek to put limits on the exorbitant interest rates charged by payday lenders.

In short, a Dignity Voter is one who votes to enhance the dignity of everyone in our community, in our state, and across the country.

The NJC is affiliated with the Kansas City organization known as Communities Creating Opportunity, which is a 501(c)(3) organization. Consequently, those who work with NJC are required to be nonpartisan. That is, when we contact people we cannot mention any political party or any candidate’s name.

Largely for that reason, after canvassing on Oct. 18 I decided to stop working with NJC in their voter campaign. I still very much believe in Dignity Votes, but I am afraid many people don’t know who to vote for even if they want to be a dignity voter.

As I live in the 6^th congressional district, my representative to the U.S. House of Representatives is Sam Graves, who is running for re-election. But it seems clear to me that a dignity voter would need to vote for Bill Hedge, his main opponent.

In the past Rep. Graves has voted against raising the minimum wage, and his present stance seems to be the same. He also has repeatedly voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Hedge, however, is clearly for raising the minimum wage and for supporting and improving the ACA. So even though Sam will probably be re-elected, still I am going to cast a dignity vote for Bill Hedge.

Those of you who live in other congressional districts, or in other states, will need to determine which candidates would be most acceptable to dignity voters.

Please join me in seeking to be a dignity voter on Nov. 4. Let’s vote for those candidates who will do the most to help, and enhance the dignity of, the poor, the disadvantaged, and the most vulnerable persons in our society.