Ian Brown, Walker Brown and L'Arche

Was it Walker Brown, the subject of a series of articles titled “The Boy in the Moon,” who unintentionally brought his father, unwillingly, to L’Arche? Or, was it L’Arche that went out to meet Ian Brown in his journalistic quest? If you haven’t yet read the articles in the Globe and Mail, I encourage you to do so. You may come to think that the meeting was inevitable.

It all started ...

Last december, following the publication of The Boy in the Moon during three weeks of the Saturday special edition of the Globe and Mail, we contacted the author, journalist Ian Brown. There were just too many parallels between these articles and Jean Vanier and L’Arche for us not to get in touch with him.

One of these will illustrate my point: Ian Brown wrote that “the most important question of today is "what is the value of a handicapped life? ” If that doesn’t convince you, he also wrote the following: “If I can prove Walker's broken presence is essential to the world, maybe someone will protect him when I'm no longer here to do so."

L'Arche in Montréal

Several weeks later, notebook in hand, journalist Ian Brown came to L’Arche-Montreal. Jocelyn was there to greet him, and Robert Larouche fielded his initial questions. “What are the fundamental principles of L’Ache?” Brown asked. Robert responded, elegantly and clearly, just as Jean Vanier would have done. Then, beaming his huge smile and without any kind of transition, he invited the journalist to the community mass. Surprised, Brown hesitated.

Parenthetically, I should explain that at the end of “The Boy in the Moon” articles, Ian Brown mentions the spiritual dimension of L’Arche. Ηe speaks of it as if he would like to share in it, wishing no doubt to find in it some meaning or tranquility in the face of the mystery and the suffering of his own son. “I only wish I could believe in his [Vanier] God as well. Because the truth is, I do not see the face of the Almighty in Walker, and it would demean him to try. Instead, I see humanity, the face of my boy” he writes. If this last sentence does not exactly touch on spiritual matters, surely one can say it is at least close.

Robert clearly sensed his hesitation and, before leaving us, he wanted to clarify his intentions. “I am not inviting you to the mass as a religious service, but to one of the most beautiful gatherings of our life together.” Presented with the invitation from that perspective, Ian Brown hesitated no longer. Once again, notebook in hand, he observed everything. Later, talking about how this celebration touched him, he would use the word incarnation. “I have never seen such a mass” he would say.

The evening ended much later around the dining-room table of L'Esquif, where the wonderful meal was joined by grace and laughter.. Here, Ian Brown met Jimmy, Jadwiga, Isabelle, Marc, and Nathalie, and here we learned a bit more about Ian and his son, Walker.

At the same time ...

At the same time, the Globe and Mail articles raised great excitement in a number of L’Arche communities. During the weeks following their publication, a number of them, independently of one another, invited Ian to visit them. These articles can still be found on the Globe and Mail web site. Photos and videos of Walker are linked to them. Among them is the first video clip, found in the first instalment, a clip which sets the tone for the 15 subsequent articles. If you don’t have time to read the articles, you only need watch this first video clip to be touched by the depth of humanity they convey.

Latimer vs Brown

By pure coincidence, Ian Brown’s articles were published at the same time that Robert Latimer’s first request for parole was denied. Latimer has served ten years in prison for the mercy killing of his daughter. We cannot avoid seeing the parallels between these two stories, between these two men confronted by the same pain, the same powerlessness. In the first video clip of “The Boy in the Moon,” we hear Ian say the following:

"I hear parents of other handicapped kids saying all the time, 'I wouldn't change my child,' " They say, 'I wouldn't trade him for anything.' But I would. I would trade Walker, if I could push a button, for the most ordinary kid who got Cs in school. I would trade him in an instant."It is a disturbing declaration. We want to condemn it. We imagine what is likely to follow …. “But,” he continues, "I wouldn't trade him for my sake, for our sake. But I would trade for his sake. I think Walker has a very, very hard life."

There is—in the way he tells the story, highlights life, creates images of daily life, and touches us through each—something that reminds one strangely of the writings of Henri Nouwen. As with Nouwen, the stuff of daily life unfolds before our eyes with as much simplicity as familiarity.

"One night last fall, for instance, I took my 14-year-old daughter, Hayley, to the ballet. She's a dancer herself; it's my favourite evening out — I wear a bow tie and she wears a dress. Jerome Robbins had choreographed music by Philip Glass. A work of art that lets you see the crisp shape of your own existence, even while you are immersed in your repetitive, blinkered life. A generous, hopeful gesture. It brought thick tears to my eyes." Period. We are left in suspense. But in the next paragraph, he continues:

"Walker makes people cry too. It can happen any time and to almost everyone who meets him, eventually. Walker has the same effect as the ballet. They both can reveal the larger shape of the world."

Jean Vanier, the most important thinker …

In the fifteenth instalment, to conclude his series of articles, Ian Brown refers to L’Arche and to Jean Vanier. He read Jean’s last book, Our Life Together, and featured it on his weekly CBC Radio One program, Talking Books. “Jean,” he says, “is the world's foremost thinker and philosopher on the rights of the disabled.….”

With respect to the L’Arche model, he adds: “Instead of integrating the handicapped into the normal world, he calls for the able-bodied to be integrated into the world of the handicapped, to live among them—because that way, we will learn more.”

There is something original about this last comment. It has been ages since L’Arche has been described in such terms. Let’s forget the politically incorrect vocabulary—his choice of words still touches, at one and the same time, the originality and the radical nature of L’Arche—and see the comment into its original context. The comment was, however, not universally appreciated. Here at L’Arche Canada, we received several indignant letters. A number of parents who have fought and struggled for inclusion for their children, saw in it an appeal for segregation, a return to institutionalization. Jean Vanier was presented as opposing integration. We were asked to take a position. We even received a letter demanding that Jean Vanier himself publicly correct the journalist’s comment.

We placed a correction on our web site but we also published the statement. It might be a good comment, even an excellent one, if it were slightly amended. Would Ian Brown be interested in participating in a public dialogue with Jean? And what would Jean say? And, even if he were willing, would he have the time?

The landing

One only has to see L’Arche’s founder’s agenda for April 4, 5, and 6 to sense the logistical problems presented by the endeavour. A Senate hearing, a round table with Patrick Poivre D’Arvor and Mme Fugain, an invitation to speak to the General Assembly of L’Arche in Paris, an awards ceremony, two conferences at French high schools, a taping for an Edmonton school, and a meeting of LTA in his own L’Arche community in Trosly. All of this in three days.

The following morning, April 7, Ian Brown lands in Paris. Members of La Ferme provide the taxi service. He explains that he is a rover—this is how one describes journalists of his stripe. By definition, a rover is a nomad. In journalistic jargon, this means that he does not have to write an article every day or even every week; he can write when he wants, as he wants, and on whatever subject he chooses. A very important reporter! He lights up a cigarette and, for an instant, one thinks of Clint Eastwood.

He is to meet Jean that afternoon and again the next day, just before Jean’s departure for Kenya. Jean has been prepared for this meeting. He knows that this journalist has the dexterity of a Henri Nouwen and the human depth of a Paul Rancourt or a David Rothrock. He also knows that the point is not that another article about him will be written, one more article to add to all the others, within which will be said, in other words, that which has been written a thousand times before. In addition, it is not about L’Arche that Jean wants to speak, still less about himself, but about life at L’Arche, about the people who surround him, about what unites them and gives them life.

And of course it isn’t that simple. All of the things that Jean would like to talk about are not easily said in a few words placed in two columns of a newspaper. It was important to find a way to do this that would be suitable both for Jean and for the ideas he wished to communicate and which would dervelop over time, preferably in a public forum. How to find such a forum. Something amenable to his 80 years, to his overfull schedule and, above all, to his desire for anonymity because, for some time now, Jean has wanted to reduce the number of invitations he receives from Canada, invitations spurred precisely by such media attention.

The table is set

At this point, the table is set. I know some people are praying for this. One may or may not believe in the power of prayer, but it becomes evident that the likelihood of success is slim, and that it is better to put everything into God’s hands. He will know how to find the path on which these two people must walk some distance together, borrowing Jean’s sensitivity and Ian’s creativity.

Jean is marvellous. The extreme fatigue, visible in his face over the past few days, has disappeared. Notwithstanding his 80 years, he seems to recover very quickly. Ian, for his part, is seeking to confirm in this first meeting the road he has travelled with Walker.

The articles published in the Globe and Mail are actually excerpts from a book, of the same title, which Random House will publish next January. Jean is vibrant, present, interested: he has much to say and talks about things of which he normally doesn’t speak. Trust is established; the heart-to-heart connection is made. Ian Brown could not have wished for a better welcome.

The big question of the day …

Today, Ian interviewed Dominique in his L’Arche home. He talks about a long history of conflict and violence between a farmer in the village, Monsieur Potte, and the Trosly community. He tells Ian about the day he was not been able to find anyone to care for his rabbit while he went on vacation. Dominique went and knocked on Monsieur Potte’s door, and asked him to look after Oscar. He explained to Ian how that was the beginning of friendship and the end of the long-lived tension. At the end of his life, about to die in hospital, Monsieur Potte asked that Dominique be brought in so that he could see him one last time.

Dominique’s story is dramatic, and illustrates powerfully the kind of contribution that people with a developmental handicap can make. But, how can one talk about the contribution of men and women like Walker, Adam, or Gégé, who do not know how to tell their stories? This is the challenge handed down by Ian Brown.

Journalists like to think that they can get anyone to talk. This pretension is not based on a special technique, but on the deeply held conviction that each of us has something unique to say. What was special about the meeting between Ian and Jean is that both had something unique to say and that, through this public dialogue, a new perspective has been placed on the matter of the lives of people affected by serious developmental handicaps. "The most important question today, says Brown, is what is the value of a handicapped life."

On one condition …

Jean agreed, on one condition … on the condition that this would all begin in small things, without pretension. On the condition that, during this exchange, he would be permitted to talk about those who surround him. On the condition that it would be daily life at L’Arche, and its simple values, which would be the thread through this dialogue that will lead only God knows where. If all goes well, starting in September, their discussions will appear monthly in the pages of the Globe and Mail.

La semence

La Semence is a MAS home. In France, this means its "clients" are considered ”high need.” If Walker were at L’Arche, he would be living in one of these homes. On Wednesday night, April 9, a house party was held there, in what had been home ground during our short visit. For us, it was also a farewell party.

The wine and porto flows freely and not only in the glasses of the Assistants. We are a bit surprised. Psychiatrist’s orders, we are told. Patrick Mathias had helped the team understand that the life of the copains (friends), as the “core members” are known here in these MAS home, is difficult enough to warrant ignoring this medical restriction so that they might participate wholly in the joy and the communion of these special moments of merrymaking.

The evening ends with prayer. Gégé, huddled in his chair, seems to be somewhere else. Is there someone behind the external appearance? Is there a “boy in the moon”? One might doubt it. Ian watches Gégé, his face betraying his emotion. He is asking himself the same question.

Garry stands up to take Gégé to bed. On the table in front of him he places three rag toys, each attached to a short string. Gégé raises himself and chooses one to take with him for the night. The curious phenomenon of this simple choice in which can be seen the shadow of a wish—and suddenly the doubt that had been felt evaporated.

Letters to a young poet

Doubt, that which alternates with faith, painful, certainly, allows some to deepen their senses and to make them more human. I cannot stop myself from thinking here about Franz Kappus. A young man, doubting the quality of his poetry, he wrote to the famous poet, Rainer Maria Rilke. He wrote to Rilke as one would speak to a confidant who could help him overcome the doubt that assailed him. An exchange of letters with Rilke followed. Rilke, humble and magisterial at the same time, wrote about all of the great issues of existence: love, death, God, solitude … His Letters to a Young Poet proved to be a spiritual guide whose worldwide success has never yet been surpassed.

Let us hope that the correspondence of Ian Brown and Jean Vanier proves to have the same depth and power.

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Jean-Louis Munn, April 12, 2008

Comments :

I found this account of Ian, Jean and Jean-Louis' encounter very touching - it echoes so much of what Jean talked about at the anthropology meeting in the summer around how we need to make connections with like-minded people and organizations in this and other fields. It seems like there is much potential in this connection and I hope that it will unfold in a way that exposes more people to the community through his articles. thanks for sharing it!

Pamela Cusing