For those who want a copy:
"If you wish to enter the world of those
who are broken or closed in upon themselves,
it is important to learn the language.
Learning a language
is not just learning French or Spanish or German.
It is learning to understand what people are really saying,
the non-verbal as well as the verbal language.
The verbal exterior language is the beginning
and is absolutely necessary,
but you must go deeper
and discover what it means to listen:
to listen deeply to another,
to the cry flowing from the heart,
in order to understand people,
both in their pain and in their gift;
to understand what they are truly asking
so that you can hold their wound, their pain
and all that flows from it:
violence, anger or depression,
self-centredness and limitless demands;
the suffocating urge to possess,
the refusal to let go;
to accept these with compassion,
without judging , without condemning."
"You must go deeper and discover
what it really means to see another!
- to see the light shining in the darkness,
- to recognise the seeds of hidden gifts
and to water these seeds and rejoice as they grow.
You may also discover what it really means to give:
to give to another the possibility
to take on more responsibility;
to give to another hope and trust,
acceptance of his and her essential beauty,
and to welcome inner riches as they unfold.
To do this you must listen and understand
the non-verbal language of the body
as well as the language of words.
The first language of the child is so deep,
this language of the body.
We can perhaps recognise the pain and anguish
conveyed in the taught face, all screwed up, of a tiny baby,
just as we recognise the peaceful surrender
in its radiance of trust and light."
Some people can only talk with their bodies;
only from there do true words flow.
Sometimes it is because they cannot speak,
but also it may be because they have lost trust in words.
They have heard too often
words that have been only empty promises,
words that have been lies,
words that condemn or despise,
words that hurt.
At the beginning of the Church
on that glorious day of Pentecost,
when the Spirit came like an explosion of new life,
the disciples began to talk in different languages
so that all could hear about Jesus in their own language.
The spirit does not speak in just one language,
and Christians must not impose theirs.
Language is sacred,
intimately linked to culture,
to the earth and the climate
to the mother.
There is a profound meaning in the fact
that we speak our "mother tongue".
The first disciples were given new languages
so that they might understand, right from the beginning,
the ways of God:
how he wants us to respect difference
and to learn the language of the other
so that there may be true communication
and communion.
This new language is not always given
in a flash of the Spirit, alas!
We must learn it
and this implies hard work!
Learn and respect others in their own culture;
their ways of eating,
their ways of interacting
their ways of doing things,
their forms of relationships.
Come, listen and learn.
Do not judge others and their ways;
instead respect them and love them.
Open your hearts to them.
If you come in this way,
open, listening humbly, without judging,
then gradually you will discover
that you are trusted.
Your heart will be touched.
You will begin to discover the secret of communion."
"The Basis of Dialogue" taken from Jean Vanier's The Broken Body: Journey to Wholeness (Dartman, Longman & Todd: 1988).
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