The Power of Ritual: Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices

by Casper ter Kuile

In one of the most important texts I’ve read, Community and Growth, Vanier writes that when we enter into community we find the warmth of love to be exhilarating. This feeling of welcome allows us to lift our masks and barriers and to become more vulnerable with one another. We enter into a time of communion and great joy. “But then too,” he writes, “as [we] lift [our] masks and become vulnerable, [we] discover that community can be a terrible place, because it is a place of relationship; it is the revelation of our wounded emotions and of how painful it can be to live with others, especially with some people. It is so much easier to live with books and objects, televisions, or dogs and cats! It is so much easier to live alone and just do things for others when one feels like it.” Sister of Saint Joseph Sue Mosteller, who has spent four decades living in L’Arche communities, puts it very simply: “Community is the most wonderful thing in the world. And it is also the most terrible!”

Sounds like living in a small town - everyone knows your business, whether you want that or not