The Unmasking of Nothingness
Simone Riva - “I, too, know the external, I would like to say, a mechanical device of life that thunderously and giddily bustles us without requital. Today, so-and-so; this and this to do; rushing here, clock in hand, to be on time there. “No, dear, thank you: I can't!” “Oh yeah, really? Lucky you! I have to run….” ‘Eleven o'clock, breakfast’ ‘The newspaper, the bag, the office, the school….’ ”Nice weather, too bad! But business….” “Who passes by? Ah, a hearse…. A farewell, rushing, to those who left.” “The store, the factory, the court….”
No one has time or way to stop for a moment to consider, whether what he sees others doing, what he himself does, is really what above all suits him, what can give him that true certainty, in which alone he could find rest” (L. Pirandello, ‘Quaderni di Serafino Gubbio operatore,’ Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, Milan 1974, p. 3). Advent is the time of this verification, “of stopping for a moment to consider, whether what he sees others doing, what he himself does, is really what above all suits him, what can give him that true certainty, in which alone he could find rest.”
Observing ourselves in action is what we often miss and what makes us afraid. What if we needed to have the proper reasons for doing the things we do? What if we lacked the impetus that life needs to be alive? What if what we call “friendships” become complicit in our temptation to delegate every move? It can be dangerous for Advent to live this way because it intends to unmask nothingness disguised as the everyday. In a sense, we feel it on us, in our skin and veins, that we are not meant to be overwhelmed by the “external device” of life.
But what will save us from this risk and make us want to enter these weeks with our whole selves? The time that prepares us for Christmas suggests, as a remedy, waiting. A life of waiting is capable of escaping the “external device” of things that repeat the same by killing wonder. Waiting for what, for whom? Of the hour of the Son of God, whose first sign is precisely our restlessness and impatience. St. Augustine describes it effectively: “Those who rely more on the Author of the gifts received than on the things received as gifts without enslaving themselves to them, and as for the things themselves, they see in them a trait of his mercy coming to console them.
Hence, they are unsatisfied with the gifts lest they precipitate away from the Giver. Such people will not be taken aback by the coming of that hour, which will be like the coming of a thief.” What is “convenient” for us? What does a “true certainty” bring to life? In what can we “find rest”? Let us enjoy Advent to see for ourselves where these questions will take us. We will discover that we need more than ever the disarming simplicity of a child who responds to our cry with his cry that tears through the night—moving and ultimate initiative of God to marry our humanity.
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