Miya Shimada, Crane Scholar, Senior Cohort
This summer, I got to road trip around the country researching human flourishing in the context of disability integration in collaboration withThe Global Flourishing Study, L'Arche USA, and The Institute for Faith & Learning at Baylor University.
L'Arche is a network of nonprofit communities across the globe that cultivate shared life between people with and without disabilities. After spending last summer (2025) in Washington DC as a Baylor Religion and Social Life Fellowworking at L'Arche, I realized that the people at L'Arche have important, counter-cultural things to say about what it means to live a good life.
Upon returning to Baylor, I proposed a case study of L'Arche to theInstitute for Global Human Flourishing at Baylor, which partners with Harvard, Gallup, and the Center for Open Science to conduct the 5-year, 200,000-participant Global Flourishing Study. After getting approval from the Institute for Global Human Flourishing and funding from the Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor, I began to coordinate community visits with L'Arche USA.
As a result, over the span of 10 weeks this summer, I drove 10,000+ miles across 30 states. I was welcomed into 32 different houses, 11 of which were L'Arche homes. I also got the opportunity to attend 2 Regional Gatherings of 4-7 L'Arche communities each, giving me the chance to spend time with 17 of the 24 L'Arche communities in the US! I also visited 15 fellow Crane Scholars and many other family members and friends along the way.
During the visits, I was warmly welcomed into the lives of L'Arche members, giving me the chance to observed the rhythms of their community and survey/interview my new friends using the Global Flourishing Study's domain-based questions. While many of my observations and conversations taught me invaluable things about what it means to flourish as a human, I want to share one story in particular:
L'Arche Boston North lost a core member a few days before I was scheduled to visit, but they still warmly welcomed me into their community. While I was there, I became friends with Woody. To me, Woody embodies the core principles of L'Arche. He moved into a L'Arche home after bouncing between institutions and group homes since childhood. He values his independence, and L'Arche is the first place where he gets to have his own space. He lives on a floor of the house with his own bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, tv room, office, and front door (all of which contain parts of his huge collection of music memorabilia). Woody also adores his wife, another core member at L'Arche. He is a true gentleman and cares for her in any way he can.
The first night of my visit to L'Arche Boston North, I took two pictures of Woody. In the first picture, he is celebrating the 4th of July with a sparkler and a huge smile on his face. In the second picture (taken minutes later), he is holding up the same candle that he used to light the sparkler in honor of his late friend of 40+ years. With the candle raised and his eyes to the sky, he said a prayer for her and addressed her directly, saying that he's glad she's not in pain anymore and is looking forward to seeing her in Heaven.
L'Arche is a place of joy and grief intermingled in the beautiful mess that is real life. There's no sugarcoating or stifling grief at L'Arche, as illness and death are experienced frequently. But death has no power over the joy of community. We are grateful to have sweet friends to miss when they are gone, and we continue to enjoy the friends we still have while we can. Woody taught me that human flourishing is using the same candle for mourning and for the lighting of a sparkler - joy and grief from one source, as inseparable from each other as love and loss.
Okay, that was a longer reflection than I expected - and it only scratched the surface! Thank you again for your support and encouragement. What a blessing to have faculty & staff who care so deeply! I thank God for you.