Alfonso "Sito" Sasieta lives near Washington, D.C., and is a member of a local L'Arche community, where adults with and without disabilities share their lives together.
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What Makes a Group House a Home?
A Tuesday night celebration at L'Arche Highland House. Photo by Rachel Schrock
L’Arche challenges the notion that a group home is predominantly a place to provide care services. We have learned over time that the health of our community is rooted in how we gather, celebrate, and make known the unique gifts of every person. This does not diminish the work of competent caregiving, but rather, it places it in a larger context that recognizes how ritual and gathering emphasize a person’s gifts and beauty rather than their diagnoses.
Psalm 46: For Charlie Palmieri
Illustration by Aldo Jarillo
My stanzas do not resemble marimbas
after all. These lines are the warmed
rank of organ pipes, droning & melting
their millennia into my shoulders.
Yes, yes, my God is heavyset & broad
& not a week of childhood passes
without Bach or Luther or a collect
that echoes the grungy psalmist