It's been almost 8 months since I've been with L'Arche Community in Lambeth, London.
I've had amazing experiences not to mention painful & difficult yet joyous moments/times.
Just when I'd thought,
"Ooohhh... I am now slowly getting used to life in Gothic Lodge and settling in (almost) well...", whoooooooooosh..... I'm thrown off balance one again!!!
It all happened so quickly.
Didn't get the chance to sit with myself (as I much preferred under usual circumstances), allowing what was to come digest in my system or anything like that.
It just happened...
I'm beginning to realise that whatever happens (by choice or not, whether we or anyone engineered us towards it or not, how we felt or not) is meant to be (whether we chose to call it ' good' or 'bad').
Yet something deep within me had that peace despite the turbulance going on inside.s
I'm no longer a House Assistant in Gothic Lodge but a Workshop Assistant in the 'Relaxing Group Workshop' since 18 June 2007 (Mon).
This new change was very difficult not only for me but for the whole house (the Assistants and people with learning disabilities). Everyone is effected by this change and there's even an 'unspoken knowing in the air' that there's going to be more changes soon as the Summer Holidays approaches and ends. Turnover of Assistants are great.
"Change shouldn't be a problem for them (people with learning disabilities) because they've experience so many changes all the time throughout the years. People come, people go. They come and they go."
But I totally disagree !!!
Is it any wonder why there are so many challenging or difficult behaviours especially in people with special needs/learning disabilities?
For them there are no means or ways to express what they are feeling or even begin to grasp what's going on around them but they certainly 'know' and feel (at their very core. A knowing beyond description).
Unlike you and i.
We are such good actresses/actors. We have learnt to deal with this by easily distracting ourselves from what we truly are going on inside.
We busy ourselves and ignore that gentle thugging in our hearts by doing or distracting ourselves. (busying ourselves with 101 things we gotta do & must do- impulse spending/buying, cleaning, cooking, eating, talking to freinds endlessly about everything & anything under the sky apart from ourself, plonking in front of the tally or whatever...?!) to make us feel better or try to forget what it was in the 1st place that made us launch on this journey of distraction.
We take for granted so many things in life. We fail to recognise it in ourselves. But if we were to look closely at ourselves, we might just realise we are no different.
Everyday, the people I live and work with challenges me 'look' at myself more genuinely, honestly and truthfully. In their silence, they nudge & bless me to 'see' me as I am, to acknowledge my true self & being.
I found it so.... very difficult the first 2 weeks when I started at the workshop. I felt so lost, so alienated, so apart (from everyone else at GL coz I no longer was part of the team I once was), so dislocated and so all over the place.
Although I knew (in my head), workshop setting (8 hours straight, 1-1 attention with about 2-4 people in a room) is more intense (a house setting or workshop setting cannot be compared as it both has it's own strengths & weaknesses), but in reality it was far from this 'knowing' ...
It is an experiences to be lived.
By the end of day 1, I was deflated !!! Totally and completely wipped-out !!!
Day 2 wasn't helpful either, felt worse than ever and even began to regret my move.
Week 1 ... terribly scary !
Week 2 & a half ... began to see a glimpse of a faraway 'light' in the distance.
Eventually, today week 3 ... coming to terms & embracing that little glimpse of 'light' in the distance.
This 'knowing' that isn't dependant on feelings alone but the realisation (yet again) of the great I Am is in place.
All because ... of Grace, Mercy & Love
It is not i, but Him who is Grace, Mercy & Love
May that same Grace, Mercy & Love embrace each of them all.
