By: Benjamin Scott
Benjamin is an assistant at Farmhouse. He journeyed half-way around the world to participate in a peace walk in Australia in August. Here is his reflection on what it means to walk with those pushed to the margins of society.
After returning from a month-long peace walk with Aboriginal people in the Western Australian desert who are vigorously defending their land from exploitive uranium mining companies, I walked into a Farmhouse filled with familiar and new faces. After a few minutes, I realized what I desired most, despite having just walked hundreds of kilometers on desert sand, was to walk with my good friend, Sharilynn. This illustrates just one gift of L’Arche: a continuous invitation to walk with one another, whether in silence, solidarity, joy, or pain.
When I arrived at L’Arche Tahoma Hope, one of the first and most endearing images I witnessed was of Jean Vanier and Stacie Swanson walking together in a painting that hangs in the office. After a year of living with Stacie and another year growing as friends outside of the context of house-mates, I better understand the slow, deliberate pace at which she walks, the particular way she grasps my right hand, and even better my desire to impatiently walk more quickly. In Australia, the Aboriginal community in and around Kalgoorlie has experienced decades of abuse, exploitation, and discrimination from the government, non-native citizens, and corporate mining companies. And yet they welcomed me and a host of other foreigners to walk on country with them, to learn both the beauty of their traditional land and the history of destruction their home has and continues to experience.
As an assistant and as a peace-walker, I am gifted with numerous invitations to walk with others, to share our mutual brokenness, and to actively listen to voices routinely marginalized. To live in community, whether transient in the desert or fixed in the Tacoma locale, is to choose relationship. When Freddy and Greg knocked on David Rothrock’s door, many lonely steps were taken to and from that place. It is not lost on me that the courage of our original core members at L’Arche Tahoma Hope made possible my first steps with Stacie, the Aboriginal community, and with Sharilynn.
When Sharilynn and I finally arrived at Hopespring, sat down with some lemonade, and relaxed in the shade of the porch, I was overcome by a joy rooted in the love Sharilynn so readily shares with our community daily.
