I'm Chris Dittipet. Today, a radio pilgrimage to Larsh, community formed around people with

mental disabilities and others who share life with them. At the heart of the Larsh movement

is a counter-cultural idea of difference as normal and imperfection as a source of strength.

What I've experienced in Larsh has been many times the beauty of things that go wrong

even or that don't go according to the way we would like them to or according to our

plan, but they're still wonderful and that's the charism of Larsh.

This is speaking of faith. Stay with us for Larsh, a community of brokenness and beauty.

I'm Chris Dittipet. The Larsh movement is named in the French tongue of its birthplace. It

means the arc, an old image of all the parts of creation, journeying together. In this movement

that spans 34 countries, community is formed around people with mental disabilities. Today, we'll

revisit our radio pilgrimage into the world of Larsh, its rhythms of life, its openness to pain

and failing and its habits of love and forgiveness. From American public media, this is speaking

of faith, public radio's conversation about religion, meaning, ethics and ideas.

Today, Larsh, a community of brokenness and beauty.

Increasingly in our culture, the word community is an offshoot of identity politics.

It is used to group people who think or act alike, but at the heart of Larsh is a counter-cultural

idea of difference as normal and imperfection as a source of strength. One of the realities we're

all called to go through in those words of Mother Teresa to move from repulsion to compassion

and compassion to wonderment. Jean-Vanier founded Larsh in 1964. He had been a British naval officer

and then a professor of philosophy in Canada. At Christmas time in 1963, he visited a friend,

a Dominican monk working as a chaplain in a small French institution for men with mental

handicaps. The world of the handicapped, he says, was new to him, and yet he found himself deeply

...