Other People

Sartre is wrong when he says that hell is other people. It is heaven that is other people. They only become hell when we are locked into our own egoism and darkness. If they are to become heaven, we have to make the slow passage from egoism to love. It is our own hearts and eyes that have to change.

- Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, p. 312

I used to think Sartre was right. Cynical and sour (although I thought myself simply realistic), I held to an existential worldview of isolation, filled with sadness that there was no meaning in the world except in resistance, that there was no real God, nothing really good.

In ministry, I rediscovered the joy of life in community. Vanier is right. Other people, as difficult and cantankerous as they can often be, are still heaven. We are created to live in relationship with one another. We are not ourselves when we are isolated. To become trapped in my own ego is to deny my responsibility for others and their responsibility for me. As one of our more modern hymns sings, “We are not our own.” But when we live in community, sharing vulnerability and setting ego aside, there the Holy Spirit moves. There, in mutual openness and accountability, we know the beginnings of holy love.

Who do you love? If your heart and mind are unlocked and set free, the answer becomes clear. Jesus called it love of neighbor. And your neighbor is anyone who is in need.