Si ripiegano i bianchi abiti estivi
e tu discendi sulla meridiana,
dolce ottobre, e sui nidi.
Trema l’ultimo canto nelle altane
dove sole era l’ombra
e ombra il sole,
tra gli affanni sopiti.
E mentre indugia tiepida la rosa
l’amara bacca già stilla il sapore
dei sorridenti addii.
(CRISTINA CAMPO)

Nature is the most reliable witness of the metamorphosis that we live; no season is perfectly identical to the previous one: colours and perfumes become messengers of time. This does not happen suddenly; the yellowed leaves in autumn are more eloquent than in the previous year. The return of spring finds us “others”, different from what we were. In the same way, when we are no longer children, we see gems in a different way. When we are children our first worry is that of being finally able to play in the park without rain, or that of putting on dresses with half sleeves. As time goes on, the prevailing feeling is the silence of waiting, the demand of an evolving stupor.

The perception and the sense we attribute to events change, but the puer aeternus remain within us, the interior child with whom we must surely dialogue: with tenderness and determination, otherwise we risk to remain victims of its caprices, to live a certain oscillating uneasiness between the enthusiasms of young visionaries and the extinguished resignations, characteristics of those who feel old and out of play. We need times to have a pause, because fleeing is a dangerous deceit, an apparent solution.

To have a pause …

If we want to find inspiring motives of journeys, in the different seasons of  life, we need to pause, to have breaks. To pause means also being willing to know the reality and to get ready for the acceptance of lights and shadows, which inhabit the invisible interiority. The vital environment in which deep inclinations are manifested and habits get rooted is not identical for all of us. If we are ready to reflect on our personal history, glimpses of knowledge around unexplainable vulnerability will open: “The past is a strange creature: by looking at its face we may land on ecstasies, or on desperation”. (Emily Dickinson). There are very childish mature persons as well as children who have been compelled by life to become adult before time: “Great age does not give wisdom, nor seniority fair judgement” young Elihu exclaims in the book of Job (Job 32, 9).  

To pause means also to evaluate with seriousness, disenchantment and hope, if we live the time that belongs to us or we try for various motives to push ourselves towards other directions.   The means of information, particularly the television, in whose company we spend a lot of time, are not adequate instruments for the education to a healthy realism: there is a whole campaign of consumptions, which advocates such an ingenuous “juvenilism” as to leave us breathless.  

 There is a kind of falsification of the natural rhythm. Women with identical language and the physical look very much alike prevent, almost for fun, the identification of the roles of mother and daughter. An old, somehow banal, slogan admits that the secret is to feel young more than to be really young!

However, if the life-style we want to live is not that of reality, where time is devoured by emptiness, we understand that to pause becomes a vital necessity. The imploration of the Psalmist expresses it well: “Teach us to count up the days that are ours, and we shall come to the heart of wisdom” (Sal 90,12).

… to give a sense

Quite different tendencies are affirmed around us: children are scarcely stimulated to observe; many of them have a note-book with an alarming daily organisation for the things it contains! While the adults must earn enough to guarantee their realisation. Often the multiple activities, even the professional ones, annul the importance of the times dedicated to silence and to evaluation. The pause helps us to become aware that the frenetic times and the iper-velocity (which is quite different from efficiency) provoke unforeseeable results, and fosters the escape from the natural exigency of giving a sense to the experience. There is a tendency of giving only rational evaluations to the iper-activity of many children, and not few adults manifest signs of crisis, diversified somatisations, constant movements almost deprived of purpose and goal.  These are symptoms which express deep uneasiness, which are not always understandable only with the analysis of the genome! If a sufficient time is dedicated to discernment, we finish by understanding that there is a time for everything, as the sage reminds us (cf Qo. 3,28).

It is important to be watchful before falling into the petty snare of removing one’s age and of losing the light of reason, like the two elderly people in the book of the prophet Daniel, “They threw reason aside, making no effort to turn their eyes to heaven”(Dan.  13,9). On the contrary young Daniel knows that authentic discernment escapes the presumption to seize and to possess the mystery hidden in the events of life: «It is He who controls the procession of times and seasons…since wisdom and power are his alone” (See: Dn. 2,20-21). «Therefore, we must ask ourselves: in the course of the experiences we have made, does a line of development, passing through the various ages, truly exist from the spiritual and personal viewpoint?”. 1

To mature

It is important, when life changes, not to be deprived of dreams and realism. ”We must have our own dream, so that the journey may become easy. However, a perpetual dream does not exist. Each dream gives its place to a new one, and we must not want to keep any of them”. 2 Apparently contra-posed, dreams and realism are the feet of hope. The physiological changes, the joyful and sad events re-define us, if we cultivate the habit of having breaks and if we feel the need of composing another self-image, ready to start again. But departures differ among themselves. Those who think that the projects of an idle aged man are identical to those of an adolescent, simply oppose an inevitable process. It is natural to feel the passing years as a loss of power and possibilities, but it is wise to think that we are not a finished product and that in every moment of life there are possibilities of changes, there is always something to discover, new dimensions and horizons to acquire and to inhabit: we must desire to go on living!

It is not superfluous to remember that every phase of our existence remains signed by finiteness. Life is like a haversack that contains grace and abyss, generous choices and selfish closures. Maturity differs from simple old age: it is a process that starts from the time when we have the desire to understand and to build up with the others a better inhabitable world, without forgetting that we are not the only protagonists in history.

The words of Jesus to Nicodemus are clear: to mature is like being born again. even if we are old (John  3,3-4), it is the perspective through which we look at the life that matters (John 3,7). Of course, the years signed by the registry are not irrelevant, but the authentic disciple is the child(See: Mt 18,3-4). The context of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew indicates it.

To the question: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” (Mt 18,1), Jesus gives an unequivocal answer by attracting the attention on a child. We set on towards maturity when we become aware that the delirium and the greediness of power turn human beings into old, greedy and cruel persons, even if they have not yet white hair. Paradoxically, by starting being once again quiet and serene “like a little child in its mother’s arms” (Psalm: 131,2), we set on a journey towards a radically new wisdom, made up of patience and enlightened by the certainty that each day has enough trouble of its own” (Mt 6,34).  John  XXIII had understood this deeply , the aged “good Abbà”, whose childlike smile, despite the age, left behind a sign in the history of the past century:

«Only for today I shall devote ten minutes of my time sitting in silence and listening to God, remembering that, as the food is necessary for the life o the body, similarly silence and listening to are necessary for the life of the soul (….). Only for today I shall perform a good action without saying it to anyone. Only for today I shall make my programme: perhaps I shall not follow it perfectly well, but I shall make it. I shall be aware of two ailments: hurry and indecision”.  ³

Note

1 K. RAHNER, Saggi di spiritualità, Paoline, Roma 1969, 67.

2 H. HESSE, Le stagioni della vita, Mondadori, Milano 1985, 76.

3 http://www.romaexplorer.it/divertimento-online/poesie/poesia_vita.htm

 Antonietta Augruso
Lecturer of Religion
Via Eurialo, 91 - 00181 Roma