From Brokenness to Community (Harold M. Wit Lectures) (The Wit Lectures)

A nice, quick read with some profound insights into community and love. Definitely recommended! A few of my favorite quotes from the book:"Community means accepting people just as they are, with all their limits and inner pain, but also with their gifts and their beauty and their capacity to grow: to see the beauty inside of all the pain. To love someone is not first of all to do things for them, but to reveal to them their beauty and value, to say to them through our attitude: “You are beautiful. You are important. I trust you. You can trust yourself.""Community is not fusion. Fusion leads to confusion. In a relationship of community, you are you and I am I; I have my identity and you have yours. I must be myself and you must be yourself. We are called to grow together, each one becoming more fully himself or herself. Community, in fact, gives the freedom to grow. It is not possessiveness. It entails a deep listening to others, helping them to become more fully themselves.""We can only truly love people who are different, we can only discover that difference is a treasure and not a threat, if in some way our hearts are becoming enfolded in the heart of the Father, if somewhere God is putting into our broken hearts that love that is in God’s own heart for each and every human being. For God is truly in love with people, and with every individual human being."

This book will blow your doors off if you let it.The book is so simple - two lectures delivered just around 1990. Less than 50 pages (43 total) and in a small framework. Yet, it is arguable the best and most powerful $6 purchase one might ever make. Twenty years after these lectures it rings as true as ever because it gets at the core of Christlikeness - humility toward self, exaltation of the lowly, the poor, the rejected and marginalized (though Vanier's focus is on the mentally handicapped - a great work that he does - it applies to every person marginalized by a culture; even those within churches! But, especially the poor and rejected).I am mindful of Luke 14, Mt. 25 & 1 Cor. 12 as I read this.My advice: buy it; read it; meditate on it; ingest it; pray for insight and sacrifice and humility (above all) to find ways to reach the downtrodden in this world. Then, recommend it to your friends.

In this short read, Jean Vanier touches on some of the primary heart issues with which people struggle. He is talking directly from his experience with his wisdom from the experience of working with and loving disabled people. One theme is give your life to others and see how God has designed us to live in community. The thoughts I had while reading is how to diagnose my own heart and my motives. Once my own agenda is stripped away and my actions are solely for others, which is rare, then I can see my own heart and superficial humility - and then there is an opportunity for real growth. This should be on the bookshelf of anyone seeking to serve others. There are many nuggets of wisdom in his words regardless of the people in your life: children, parents, coworkers, neighbors, etc.

This book changed my life. Jean Vanier is a Saint. A simple but powerful read. I'm constantly sharing it and referencing it. This book opened heart and reunited me with the light of Christ.

Another awesome book by Jean Vanier. This would be great reading for any community to share in. When I was a part of a community of people with disabilities and their families, I took parts of this book as weekly meditation material and it resonated so deeply. But anyone who is a part of a community life would benefit from this book, especially if the community seems to be "broken". This is one I keep on my bookshelf, and if it disappears (as they do sometimes), I buy another one.

It is only in community we find healing from our brokenness and in turn we help others to heal too.

This is an amazing little book! Here Vanier was speaking to intellectual elites at Harvard about working with the challenged, who outwardly seem to offer little to community life -- but in fact they receive life from acceptance by the community, and the community is enlivened by the living water they supply!

Jean Vanier has written an invitation to be real, to embrace becoming, to rejoice in our vulnerability and to invite the other in the life affirming journey of community. He gives new insights to words and concepts that have become so familiar but have lost their power to shape us as sons as daughters of our Father!

Excellent, profound, succinct

Beautiful insightful book which can be read time and time again. Excellent author who offers hope for a troubled world

If anyone is interested in an authentic living experience with others, they should face their own darkness by facing the darkness of helplessness and learning to commune with others!

Powerful!

I bought this after hearing someone read a story told in it. Such a wonderful book, written by a gentle teacher.