We human beings live in a fundamental contradiction. On one hand, we thirst for the infinite and are never satisfied. On the other, we are bound by limits, by finitude. We want love but fear it; we desire to be loved yet fear commitment. We long for unconditional love while insisting on the freedom to do whatever we please.
The Treasure of Our Humanity
No man, no woman is fully autonomous. We are the fruit of our parents. To conceive a child and continue the human race, we need both a man and a woman. Each of us needs the other—not only to be fruitful, but to live love itself. Each of us needs that one friend, the friend of the heart. Without friends we cannot live happily, especially when we feel poor, sick, and weary. The faithful friend gives us life. The fact that we are man and woman, drawn to one another, is the great joy of human existence.
Yet sexuality carries suffering and difficulty with it. How do we manage an attraction so powerful it can conceive a child unwillingly, or through deception? The attraction seems chaotic. It can govern our actions instead of being governed by intelligence and free choice.
Rather than serve a relationship where we find proper distance and balance, this attraction can become tyrannical and deadly. It becomes deadly when we lock ourselves in sexual fantasy and its phantoms; when we cannot love and face reality. When sexuality is merely a game in which we use others and discard them as we please.
How can what is the deepest source of life become so destructive?
- See also Man and Woman He Made Them
A Split Within
The human being is born in extreme weakness, utterly vulnerable. To live and grow, we need to be loved and respected for who we are, with tenderness. Without this respect, the child is afraid, consumed by anguish. When a child cannot bear this suffering, he unconsciously builds walls of defense around himself to protect against the terrible feeling of abandonment. He lives in a kind of void. The consequences drive him, understandably, to block his capacity to love and to create a rupture within himself. If he feels he disappoints, he must pretend to be different. He may fear love because it is precisely through love that he feels he does not exist, that he is possessed. All this creates division between head and heart and imagination; between sexuality and relationship; between what he thinks, says, and lives. The person is fractured within himself and does things he would never choose to do. Because of this lack of unity, the force of attraction, far from leading to true love, destroys it.
Making Sexuality Human
Today we speak of the right to sexuality. But we forget that sexuality involves a relationship. And relationship is fragile.
It is not a matter of suppressing desire through fear or forceful will; it is a matter of making it human. This happens only when a person moves from "the other for myself" to "myself for the other." This change of heart comes through family and friendship. Friendship can lead to love—a desire for closeness and presence. We want to be together. This loving relationship demands responsibility and commitment.
There are disabled people who seek a life together but cannot raise children. Should we forbid them marriage, which could help them grow, simply because they cannot have children?
At L'Arche we have witnessed that marriage is possible when each person is responsible for themselves and for the other, and capable of a stable, faithful relationship with some degree of autonomy. But for this to work, the couple must be accompanied and supported.
Growing in love, not using people or treating them as possessions to be kept or discarded on a whim—this is a long journey. Understanding sexuality and grasping its value, its beauty, and also its chaotic aspects is not easy in a society where sexuality is trivialized. We need models, community, friends, faith, and the desire to grow toward true maturity.
This is all the more true for a disabled person. Such a person needs trusted and faithful friends, a community—where he is understood, respected, and recognized as a person—to help him grow in autonomy. A community that forms a network, wider or narrower, a place of belonging and security, where each person can dare to try new experiences and discover the deep meaning of his life.
- Jean Vanier, 2003