The First to Discover Things
Simone Riva - Like every morning during these summer weeks of oratory, the gate opens at seven. He arrives with his backpack and heads for the bike rack. He climbs up, trying to cross it without losing his balance. The first attempt fails after a few steps; he slips but doesn't fall. He looks around to see if anyone noticed, then tries again.
The bike rack fills up quickly, leaving no more time for attempts. But that scene struck me because it reminded me of the difference in God's approach with me, with us. He didn't calculate, measure, or plan – he took a risk. He risked that there was someone like you and me. And to someone like you and me, he gave gifts that he has never regretted, even if we sometimes misuse them.
That boy's gesture, looking around after his initial failure, is the clearest sign of how we often go about our business: always fearing judgment, always afraid of making a fool of ourselves. We've grown accustomed to living defensively against the gaze of others. Only when free from this defense do we fully enjoy our experiences, as we often see these days, especially in children. They dare, they risk, they try – oblivious to others' judgment. Perhaps this is why Jesus holds children up as a model for everyone.
What will allow them to rediscover this freedom? Rapper Tedua, in his song "Empty Words," sings, "I'm coming back alone / And I don't find myself in the people / That I met along the way / And they left me only empty words / Every time I try / Even if I make a mistake, I learn again / But at the first oversight then it slips and goes." Life's circumstances often reveal that others don't offer us the space we need to accommodate our true selves.
We sense a gap, a final distance that yearns for a larger embrace. As I write, three children next to me are playing with a ladybug, gently moving her on and off a leaf they found for her shelter. They observe her with the wonder of seeing something for the first time, even though she's just a ladybug.
Who would waste time on such a small detail of reality? Even when called for a snack, they continue their undeterred observation. This simple, perhaps too simple, way of looking at things is bewildering. Then the little friends leave, lured by the scent of sausage puffs, but the first to discover the ladybug stays behind.
Everything awaits the "first in us to discover things," that part of us that remains irreducibly alive with its questions, even when "we do not find ourselves in the people we have met along the way." This is the nature of the freedom that God has placed in our hearts. To witness it in action at a children's school is always a grace. We will always try to cross our own bike racks, and always look around to ensure we aren't being watched in case we fail, but there will still be the possibility of being surprised by that larger embrace of the one who cheers for us and who keeps looking at us as if for the first time.
Il giornale di Monza - 06.18.2024
email: fdc-gdmonza@pm.me
Translation by the Editorial Team of EpochalChange.org
Unrevised translation by the author.
