"Community means caring: caring for people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says: "He who loves community destroys community; he who loves the brethren builds community." A community is not an abstract ideal. We are not striving for perfect community. Community is not an ideal; it is people. It is you and I. In community we are called to love people just as they are with their wounds and their gifts, not as we would want them to be. Community means giving them space, helping them to grow. It means also receiving from them so that we too can grow. It is giving each other freedom; it is giving each other trust; it is confirming but also challenging each other. We give dignity to each other by the way we listen to each other, in a spirit of trust and of dying to oneself so that the other may live, grow and give."
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Academics from CanadaPhilosophers from CanadaActivists from CanadaTempleton Prize laureatesTheologians from Canada
Original Language: English
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Jean Vanier, From Brokenness to Community, 1992, pp 35-36
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jean_Vanier
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Jean Vanier
Jean Vanier, CC GOQ (September 10, 1928 – May 7, 2019) was a Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian and humanitarian. He founded L'Arche in 1964, an international federation of communities, spread over 35 countries, for people with developmental disabilities and those who assist them. Subsequently in 1971, he co-founded Faith and Light, with Marie-Hélène Mathieu, which also works for people with developmental disabilities, and their family and friends, in over 80 countries, so he can play Mar
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