I am grateful for the support and patience that my McMaster committee has given me throughout the doctoral process - patience that I regularly tested. Matthew Cooper has helped me to grow through his willingness to hear me out on an endless range of shady and serious scholarly arguments. He helped guide my initial insights through his fine erudition, insightful vision and quiet insistence that I stay close to central strengths of anthropological theory. Wayne Warry delivered timely doses of encouragement and respect, along with thought-provoking challenges. He inspired me to see how the ethnography could be more polemical and broadly relevant by engaging the context and history more rigorously. Petra Rethmann's perceptive interpretations of anthropological theory in classes and discussions galvanized my interest in the discipline and provided inspiration and direction for analysis and writing. Thank you to Wayne and Petra for stretching outside their study areas with me. Finally, Rosita, Janis, Cookie, Luce and Rabia have been a dream team of staff, making tasks and trips to the department both enjoyable and efficient. My heartfelt thanks to the people in Daybreak, and especially those who shared a home with me for the better part of a year. Looking back, I am struck by your generosity and trust in welcoming a researcher to live with you. Thank you also to assistants in other L'Arche communities across Canada for your welcome, and for sharing your history(s) and hopes with me in interviews. I hope that you find that this ethnography does justice to your precious, precious stories. Namaste to those core members I go to know for your brilliant individuality, humour, and gentle lessons; Porter, David x 3, Bill, Carol, Jan, Smeltz, Eddie, and Harry. Carl MacMillan, my L'Arche liaison and friend, has encouraged and assisted me above and beyond what any anthropologist could dream of, from our first negotiations, through times when I was lost in the netherworld of analysis, and right to the end with insight, wit and class. My appreciation of the daily simplicity and ultimate complexity of L'Arche was strengthened especially by regular guidance from Warren, Matthew, Lydia, Clara, Jay, Joe E, Sr. Brenda, Marni, Joe V and Gerard. For everything that you taught me about L'Arche and about being a decent person, thank you. Thank you also to those scholars who helped me to work through conceptual challenges at various stages, and who have also been good friends: Cory Silverstein, Colin Pottie, Michel Desjardins, Michael Hyrniuk, and Harvey Feit. Similarly thanks to Patricia Smith, Maria Patriquin and Ruthie Edelstein. I thank again Bill Rodman, Bob Henderson and Peggy Cunningham for earlier support. In addition, the critiques of several additional people at L'Arche on sections of the thesis were instrumental in strengthening the analysis: Carl, Jay, Warren, Cheryl, Tanya, Sister Sue M, Joe E, Marni, Beth, Lydia, Matthew, Clara, Tim G, Eric B, and Liska. Thank you for editing assistance to David Hoyt, Tracy T, Shannon C, and Dorothy P. I thank my parents for their ongoing support, and especially for raising me to look for the beauty in people, to do my best at whatever I choose to do, and to think for myself. My brother and sister have also encouraged me to stick with this dream in various ways. Finally, sharing the excitement of getting to know anthropology and L'Arche with good friends like Judi, Simone, Adrienne, Paul, Greg, Susan, Suzanne, Tracy P and Sareena made discoveries that much sweeter. Jay, I treasure your humour, steady companionship, original insights and strength so much. I can't thank you enough for enthusiastically sharing the journey of this project with me and keeping me balanced. Thanks for believing in me. Meet you where the road is turning. Thank you to SSHRC, the Scottish Rite Mission, The Roeher Institute, PBC, L'Arche, my parents, and McMaster University for financial support of this ethnography.