Reading Jean Vanier's book Community and Growth has been awesome. Jean founded l'Arche, which is a community for handicapped people. He often comments on how much he learns from those he is taking care of and when he serves them he comments, like Mother Theresa, that he is actually serving Christ. He says many challenging and inspiring things. Here are some comments about the poor: "Jesus calls his disciples not only to serve the poor but to discover in them his real presence, a meeting with the Father. Jesus tells us that he is hidden in the face of the poor, that he is in fact the poor...The cry of the poor is threatening to the rich person within us...The poor teach us how to live the Gospel. That is why they are the treasures of the church...Our job is to stay. It is too easy to come and live among the poor for the experience, to exploit them for our own spiritual ends and then to leave." He says this concerning pride, "Inside each of us is a little tyrant who wants power and the associated prestige, who wants to dominate, to be superior and to control. We are frightened of criticism." I hope I can be as bold as Jean Vanier in reaching out to those people who are not like me; reaching out to people who are not naturally included in my life. "God, please challenge and change my comfort zone to include those normally outside of it."