Before moving to Boston to start at CSTM, I spent a year as a L’Arche Chicago Assistant, living in community with adults with intellectual disabilities, who we call core members. Before I left the community to come here, I asked John, a good friend of mine, and a core member at L’Arche Chicago, how he felt about me moving. He said “Well, if you want to go, then you have to!” While John has been very supportive of my goals and dreams to pursue an M.Div., he did not neglect to remind me of the ways I would be missed. In the weeks leading up to my departure, he would ask me who was going to help him with various tasks in my absence. I was never the only person that helped him with the tasks he was naming. There was nothing unique about my role at L’Arche. I did the same tasks as all the other assistants. John let me know through these interactions that my presence was unique, even if the tasks were not, and that he would miss me. I miss him too.
I knew that missing the core members of L’Arche Chicago would probably be the most difficult part of leaving. While I felt that I was doing what I was called to do, I couldn’t help but feel like I was leaving something very important behind. As I closed my chapter with L’Arche and have begun to open a new chapter here at CSTM, I’ve sought ways to remember my year with L’Arche. My first order of business, once I got myself moved into the CSTM Formation House, was to cover my door in the art given to me by the artists in our L’Arche community, as an outward sign of where I’ve been and as a way to hold onto a L’Arche Chicago tradition of having highly decorated bedroom doors. Everyday, I come home from school and see my door covered in color. It is a reminder of the love that held me during the last year of my life and a reminder of the ways L’Arche Chicago is cheering me on from afar these days.
I have been surprised by the ways L’Arche has followed me to Boston. For one thing, I have met more former L’Arche Assistants at CSTM than anywhere else in my life. I have rarely even had to explain what L’Arche is because practically everyone I have met either was a L’Arche assistant or knows a L’Arche assistant. I thought that when I left L’Arche, I was closing a door on that part of my life, but L’Arche is still part of my present reality. From phone calls to Chicago, to recalling my experiences as in-class examples, L’Arche keeps following me around. The experience of living with John and the rest of L’Arche Chicago, changed my day-to-day life for just one year, but has changed my outlook on ministry for the rest of my life.