Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation: Learning from the Communities of L'Arche By Michael Hryniuk

Theology, Disability, and Spiritual Transformation: Learning from ...

Chapter 1:

Transformation and the Study of Christian Spirituality

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His understanding of spirituality, while conditioned by the Christian tradition, is intended to be inclusive of all spiritual traditions. And ultimately it leads to an understanding of spirituality that springs from an anthropology grounded in the immediate and primal experience of spirit as love.

The desire for love manifests as a desire for wholeness and completion. May sees it is as the most powerful motive of human behavior and, like Thayer, views the movement of love leading ultimately toward union:

What is the nature of the action that is called forth from being in love? I have said it is not a means toward an end, not self-improvement, not moral obligation. I think we have to say it is a response. Love invites response, needs response. The actions that arise from loving presence are responses of love to love in the situation at hand. …Love responding to love is the ground of all creation. Here longing brings forth union, and union births creation.⁷

It is this understanding of the human spirit as “blind desire,” as “holy longing,” that leads to, indeed demands, a personal response of union with the other and with the Other.

A commonly cited definition of the term spirit in this generic sense is also found in Ewert Cousins’ preface to the World Spirituality Series,which he describes as a working hypothesis employed by the contributing editors of the series:

The series focuses on that inner dimension of the person called by certain traditions “the spirit.” This spiritual core is the deepest center of the person. It is here that the person is open to the transcendent dimension; it is here that the person experiences ultimate reality. This series explores the discovery of that core, the dynamics of its development, and its journey to the ultimate goal. It deals with prayer, spiritual direction, the various maps of the spiritual journey, and the methods of advancement in the spiritual ascent.⁸

Following Cousins, the focus of this study is the way in which L’Arche assistants experience change in the core of their being or “spirit” through relationships with persons with disabilities. This implies an experience that is inclusive of intellectual, emotional, and moral change but that