L’Arche: Accompaniment.

The term “accompaniment” has a very specific meaning within L’Arche. Every single person in the organization has someone who is an “accompanier,” from the executive directors on up to assistants and core members. An accompanier is someone who walks alongside the person working and living in L’Arche, sharing their journey, offering an ear, advice, companionship. Because being with L’Arche can be a very intense experience, especially for those living it, accompaniers provide a perspective with a little more distance from the day-to-day happenings of the home, but with needed support and listening. Accompaniment is one of the many ways that L’Arche strives to make its entire community and organization supportive for all who are a part of it.

Because of the structure of QVS, I already had a built-in accompanier in the form of my spiritual nurturer that the program paired me with when I first started. But if I did not, L’Arche would have given me someone. And I, in turn, am an accompanier for one of the core members in our house.

My accompanier and I meet once a month, to talk, to listen, to be quiet together to let the Spirit in. Our conversations are deeply personal and deeply renewing. This month, we went to Medlock Park, where we were able to wander through the woods on and off the path, taking advantage of a pleasant sunny February day to find the remains of an old water treatment area, which has since been a much-loved spot for artists.

When I accompany a core member at L’Arche, it means many things. Some of it means noticing when something specific to that person needs doing: personal grooming, room cleaning. Sometimes it’s advocacy. Sometimes it’s going along to medical appointments. Sometimes it’s taking on bigger projects that help a core member achieve their dreams, like making signs to advertise yard work services. Sometimes it’s spending one-on-one time getting milkshakes and talking about life.

And it goes both ways, as I’ve discovered.

One of my more delightful experiences with accompaniment was when the core member I accompany asked to go with me to my upcoming ear appointment. I had spent some time going with them to their medical appointments, so it seemed fitting that they would come with me to mine. I borrowed a car and drove us both up to the facility. My appointment was sorely needed; when you wear hearing aids as often as I need to, ear infections are an unhappy side effect. We oogled car ads in the waiting room magazines and sat together in the doctor’s office while my ears were cleaned. The core member watched it all carefully, asked questions about everything, and seemed delighted to see me restored to full hearing. We went and got smoothies afterward, and the day was an outing of delight. I don’t normally hold that much anticipation for medical appointments, but being with them made me feel safe, and even have a great deal of fun.

To be together turned this rather ordinary experience into a deeper one. We ministered each other in our different sicknesses as we walked alongside each other to doctor’s appointments. It was a very real reminder that to be an accompanier is not simply looking out for someone; it is also allowing oneself to be looked after, to engage in supporting each other in the ways we are fitted to. It means allowing a space for vulnerability, to see each other in a place of need. It means a trust that lets one in to a sacred role of mutual support. And we both derive real comfort in each other’s presence.

I am grateful that L’Arche gives us a space to let these relationships and this trust grow.

February daffodils heralding springtime in the Southland.

Absence and loss.

It’s been two months since my last, and I apologize for radio silence. A lot has happened since then.

Our house is smaller than it was. Of the six members of our original Atlanta QVS crew, two have left the program. This is not unusual for any given year of QVS as a whole, but it is a bit unusual to lose two people from the same house. I am feeling the loss of their perspectives, energy and gifts in the house. But it has also brought the remaining four of us closer together.

A professor who taught me (Eastern Studies; I read the Tale of Genji with him) when I was at Shimer passed away a few weeks ago. I felt closer to him than I knew and have mourned his passing. I am very grateful for the time I spent with him over the past few years, doing alumni book discussions and taking his wheelchair out for spins and dining at his favorite Vietnamese cafe. But I bitterly regret not seeing him when I was in Chicago for the holidays.

I understand he was very ready for his passing. I am glad that this was so. I wonder how ready I will be.

L’Arche continues to delight and challenge me. Even in routines there is so much variety in each day, and I spent a lot of it on my feet. I enjoy this in a way I never expected. I spent the New Year’s with them, and we have big plans for growth in this coming year. We have had potential fourth core members visiting the house, and I am excited to see what may work out.

I have been able to plug into the organizing for the Showing Up for Racial Justice organization in Atlanta, as well as spend time with the Quakers for Racial Equality group that is part of Atlanta Friends Meeting. These opportunities have been life-giving and fulfilling for me. Next week I’ll be part of a discussion group talking about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. I feel much of my college career has prepared me for this.

I have been grateful to be introduced by my partner to the online worship group that happens as part of the Ben Lomond Quaker Center in California. Whenever I have been part of regular, daily worship, this has been a strengthening joy for me. I am hopeful to pick up some of the slack I’ve let on parts of my own spiritual life. I started reading a few things that quickly chastised me for my own lack of practice. Getting back to regular worship and meditation will be far better self-care than some other things I’ve tried.

These are all quick, quiet glimpses of the past couple of months. I have several other things I plan to write about more in-depth, such as accompaniment at L’Arche, and the best video game I’ve played in a while.

Southland in the coming springtime