“All she had to live on.”
I met John in 1975. We arrived the same day at the L’Arche community in Bangalore,
India. It was a group home for handicapped people, founded in the spirit of
Jean Vanier, the inspiration of many thousands around the world.
John was handicapped. I, so I thought, was not. John was a rarity, a forty-year-old
man with Down’s syndrome. He was frightened and withdrawn. It was the first
time he had been away from his home and his mother, who had taken care of him
over the many years. Now, since his mother was about to be hospitalized for
a long time, John needed help and L’Arche was there.
As for myself, I was a little depressed, although it probably did not show.
My own disability was covert—a lingering ache of disappointment. I had
traveled to India, made a thirty-day retreat, and discovered that I was not
changed at all. Still insecure, despite the degrees; still dissatisfied, despite
the hoops maneuvered; still timid, despite big dreams. No Francis Xavier here.
Although not relating much to anyone for the first few weeks, John gave himself
a job. He would sprawl on the floors, put his cheek against the concrete, and
start blowing with all his might in wide arches. He was cleaning the dust from
the hallways. He seemed pleased and proud of his contribution.
I contributed by cooking once in a while and presiding at the Eucharist, feeling
quite valuable. But at night I would lie stiff and sleepless on my cot, hearing
strange sounds on the other side of my unlockable door: a troubled teenager
who would growl, sniff, and murmur as he peeked in; a gentle old man, talking
and humming to himself after a day of simple chores; an urgent voice down the
hall.
Neither of us Johns, I suppose, was doing very well, although the staff—“assistants”—worried
more about him since he was less adept at covering up his affliction.
After weeks, a breakthrough occurred. John did it. Had he read my anxiety and
protective distance? Had he sensed my wish that staying there would come to
an end? Did he know I needed help?
One morning, as I made my way across a large room, stepping around obstacles,
my leg was grabbed. John was on the floor “sweeping,” face to the
ground, yet pulling my ankle.
When I looked down, stopped and startled, I saw his released hand now motioning
in the air as if he were shaking hands with a ghost. I was the ghost—but no
longer, after I took his hand to shake it and saw his upturned face smile.
Why do I always think of John when I hear of the widow’s mite? “This poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”
I guess it was the power of his gift to me. His reaching out, even though by
all accounts he had far less reason to do so than I. He had lost home and mother,
familiarity and comfort. And somehow he still gave a gift to me.
I started feeling in happier spirits after that day. John did too, perhaps from
sensing his own power to help another person.
Elijah met a poor widow of his own. He just wanted some water. The widow, gathering
sticks, went to fetch it for him. Then he just wanted some bread. But there
was nothing. She was gathering the sticks to make a fire. Left only with a handful
of flour and a few drops of oil, she prepared a final meal to eat with her son
before dying. “Do not fear,” the prophet said. “Do as you were
planning, but give me some as well. You will not run out.” The three of
them were able to eat for a year: the prophet, the woman, the child. The flour
did not vanish. The oil did not go dry.
There are times when we are down, and we think we have nothing left to give.
Little remains in the barrel of our lives. Then, for some reason, we still manage
to give more out of the nothing we have left. And grace is born again.
How often the mere pennies of others replenish us. It happens in those moments
when someone seems to have nothing much to give us: no education, no program,
no sermon, no sound advice, no solution to our problems. If they do not give
up on us, but give us something else, if they give not from their surplus, but
all they have to live on, we find that they have offered their very being. Their
presence. Their hearts. What they bestow on us, finally, is no merely human
asset, but the life of God flourishing in our faith, hope, and love.
I heard about John for at least another five years. Once I even saw his smiling
face in a little publication of the L’Arche community. I was told he was a joy
of the community.
He helps me see why Christ was so touched by a widow one day, near the temple
treasury.
John Kavanaugh, SJ
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