The Templeton Prize "each year honors a living person who has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life’s breadth of spiritual dimensions, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works." The monetary value is always set above that of the Nobel Prize because Templeton believes that "benefits from discoveries that illuminate spiritual questions can be quantifiably more vast than those from other worthy human endeavors."
One of my heroes, Jean Vanier, the creator of L'Arche, has won the Templeton Prize for his "advocacy of belonging." If you don't know about this man, you need to. I'll give you some links and encourage you to check them out:
Templeton Prize Winner
Vanier's Acceptance Speech
To become fully human is to let down the barriers, to open up and discover that every person is beautiful. Under all the jobs you’re doing, responsibilities, there is you,” Vanier answers, adding, “And you, at the heart of who you are, you’re somebody also crying out, ‘does somebody love me?’ Not just for what I can do, but for who I am."
That quote just makes me cry. No, I had no idea who he is. I plan on finding out. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI came to your blog and followed the links and ended up reading all about the award and its past winners. I had not heard of this award before but I think it is brilliant. As for the monetary award, I figure if we can pay actors a million dollars an episode we can give to these incredible people who really are making a difference. My guess is very few of them end up keeping it and end up giving it away.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post. :-)
Love, love, love!
ReplyDeleteI worship at the altar all that is Vanier. I was raised Catholic and am currently editing a book of poetry my friend wrote about being sexually abused by his brother when he was a child and when he 'confessed' it at confession he had to do five extra hail marys. So I come by my disgust of the Catholic Church honestly. But folks like Vanier, the Berrigan brothers and Dorothy Day (the latter two are profiled in the March 9th issue of the New Yorker), and Oscar Romero gives me hope.
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He is a personal friend of my in-laws as they were assistants in France. They founded the L'Arche community in Syracuse and I've been lucky enough to be introduced to the multiple houses. This is an amazing group all around. The core members have all had longer life expectancies than those who were institutionalized. ~Sarah M.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reminding me of this man's great light.
ReplyDeleteHe's a big hero of mine, too.
ReplyDeleteIt's what we all want, to be loved. Doesn't matter who we are, what we've done, who we know, always there is this underneath, just love me, just love me the way I am, I can be no other way.
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