The family you choose

It was not the most inspiring way to begin the holiday season: rather than use PTO time last week, as planned, to write! cook! clean! be productive! I instead stayed indoors, horizontal, enduring a particularly persistent chest cold. I felt like a 19th century fainting lady, spread listlessly upon the chaise lounge. Except in my case, there was zero chintz and a whole lot of Robitussin.

You know how it is when you are ill: things look bleak. You have far too much time to think, and count up grievances. Another thing about this holiday season is that it is the first I’d really be spending on my own, in DC. And boy did I ruminate on that. There’s a few reasons for it, including that the family member who intended to come and spend Thanksgiving here booked the wrong dates for their flight. D’oh! But more than that, I have had to accept the gradual splintering and drifting of my immediate biological family. It is what it is, and I think, sadly, increasingly common, particularly among my generation.

So I decided to be with L’Arche on Thanksgiving. I figured it would most likely turn out to be a blessing in disguise, as is usually the case with L’Arche, but I still couldn’t help but feel something was wrong because my Thanksgiving would not look like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Here is the thing that maybe is particular to me, and seems silly, but for some reason I have this false belief that holidays must look a certain way: perfect, I guess is the word. I have no idea why, because I have not even had a full-on family Thanksgiving since probably middle school - over 15 years ago. Am I too susceptible to advertising? Too idealistic? Have I watched too many Hallmark Christmas movies (answer: yes, but that’s beside the point). It is an odd thing to wish, because there is no aspect of life - let alone family gatherings - that is perfect. I will chalk it up to idealism, for longing for a time that maybe never even was, and a deeper desire for peace. Nevertheless, I see it is there.

Yesterday, on Thanksgiving, I had enough health back to make a glorious chestnut stuffing and head to 6th Street to join Charles and the rest. Charles is a core member. We drove to join the DC community in Adams Morgan, where about 45 people in the L’Arche community - the L’Arche family, Charles would insist - gathered.

There were the core members, assistants and other staff present. Also the friends of community (like me), and friends and family of the assistants visiting town for the holiday. An engaged couple, two babies, a few moms and dads, many people my own age.

Here is the heart of it: if you are looking for perfection, you will not find it in L’Arche. It is joyfully imperfect. In fact, that is one of the core beliefs celebrated in community: that despite our imperfections, we are loved - by God, by each other, in community.

The imperfection manifests in truly concrete ways: running out of cups and having to drink out of a measuring cup instead. Mismatched, ancient folding chairs dragged from house to house. Ten minutes-plus to shuffle with a walker from the front door to the car and get buckled in. Sometimes inedible food.

But the imperfection becomes a conduit for something greater. There is something about the lived environment, or reality, of L’Arche that enables deep, revealing heart conversations and relationships. It is as if by dropping the veneer of perfection (really, of ego), grace is allowed to break in.

What I have encountered there is a curiosity about the other, a willingness to get to know, see and listen. I always look forward to time around the table at L’Arche, where some of my favorite conversations have occurred. Whether discussing something as simple as animal fun facts (a topic last night) or one’s calling to teach or minister (also a topic last night), there is an ability to go from the light to the deep with grace and love. That goes for both the disabled, and the non-disabled you meet. And I am invited to stop thinking in terms of, “How can I improve on this, make it better, more efficient?” to “How can I spend this time with this group of people, and just be?”

I did not spend the night in any remarkable way. There was eating, and sitting, and catching up on life. I held baby Molly and kept her from sticking her fingers in the floor vents; admired the homemade turkey hats a few people donned; listened to Charles play his harmonica and sing gospel; poured all that leftover chestnut stuffing into a big Ziploc to take home. In other words, it was exactly how Thanksgiving should be, with your family.

At the end of the night, when we piled back into the car, Charles turned around and said, “I love you, Laura. Happy Thanksgiving.”

Bruce, another Arlington core family member sitting beside me, leaned his head on my shoulder and added, “I am so glad you came with us. Thank you for coming.”

These were the words I wanted to hear from my family on this day. I did not hear them from biological family. Instead, I heard them from my L’Arche family. A blessing in disguise, indeed.

That planned Thanksgiving that I had in my head did not happen. The silly decorative turkey I bought that sits on my table (still cute, for what it’s worth, and he’ll be back out in a place of honor next year); two antique serving trays I bought in September and wanted to use; busting out the new rolling pin and making a pecan pie (haven’t done that in years, and how nice it would have been); the checkered orange and yellow buffalo plaid tablecloth - really, they do not matter. I am able to let those things go. Everything passes, anyway. This is the time and the place in which God has put me, and those in my family - both the biological and the chosen family.

There was a moment toward the end of the night when I looked around the room and thought, how fortunate I am! How unbelievably fortunate I am to have a L’Arche Thanksgiving. And a L’Arche family. There is nowhere I would rather be.

If you are here on Giving Tuesday and feel called to support the mission of L’Arche Greater Washington, I welcome you to learn more and visit the donation link here: https://larche-gwdc.org/donate/giving-tuesday/

A recent outing to a Georgetown basketball game with Fr. Tom, Sarah, and core family members Bruce, Charles and Laurie. Proving that people with disabilities do not belong on the sidelines - unless it’s literally at a basketball game.