BEING STRANGE
Yes, in our world and the reality of our environment and the society we live in, we are as a species or weirdos. Our presence “seems” a way of the old normality causes a contrast but a shock to the society in which we live, the coexistence with the young and even more, in Europe. It is true, there are different ways of seeing reality, but what marks life itself is what gives meaning to it at all times. This, we saw very closely with the lenses in zoom mode from the biblical story and the personal lesson that it teaches us. The examples of mediators like Moses, the prophets, Esther, etc. In the New Testament, we have nothing less than Mary, the mother of Jesus and the Lord Jesus himself presented as those who would not have perceived as referents of the moment in which they lived in their own society or of their own people.
We know that personal experience does not live in the apparent. This is lived from existence itself, from the depths of an experience to more experiences, that of everyday life. From the perspective of coexistence in one and each one belongs to different countries, communities, or families in which we must share life. This speaks the truth of our essence not only of adaptability, but of the magnanimity of our surrender.
Timothy Radcliffe in a speech spoke of the idea according to Saint Thomas Aquinas: “To want to understand is the deepest desire of the human being.” This presents us with the strangeness, the surprise of something valuable or the one that exalts the human experience in something unexpected. I remember the experience of my first mission, the first real test in learning to communicate to people in a reality that has nothing to do with mine: language, culture, environment, food, etc. However, something valuable unites us, faith in Jesus himself. It is the link that brings us close to what we want to visualize as on a screen. This is the connection we have despite the misunderstanding of conversational phrases, the human inability to perceive what we want to express to the other, to be welcomed and accepted. In truth, they laugh at you for being different from them, they tease you for not knowing how to speak well despite your age and the challenge of the fact that despite that it is, to be sent to help them!
In those days, working as one of them was a gift and a challenge to adapt, to be hidden from the networks, to learn to lose external connections and to experience firsthand the struggle and challenge of surviving in a harsh and demanding reality in those moments of conflict and postwar. Searching for the meaning of life after war requires willpower and trust where we place our fragility and hope. It is, the attitude we undertake when there is not much visibility of comfort or security, everything is abandonment to the good of an uncertain future.
In Mark 6: 53-56 he presents us with an experience of Jesus when he crossed the lake, or which means that he left him or his own country. He teaches us to let ourselves be carried away by time and people on these peripheries without losing the anchor that sustains him, the Father. The mission life of Jesus is the cursor, the key to the depth of the sense of belonging and living new horizons, new heavens and walking in the new ways of the heart.
In the recent philosophy seminar at the Comillas Pontifical University, the rector presented a review of the questions posed by our time because the topic of the seminar was: thinking to face uncertainty. It invites us to think in the midst of what we are living through, the pandemic that does much harm to humanity and gives everyone emptiness, a great stranger that does not put an end to this anguish and loss of life. Pure opinion is no longer relevant, pretending to be the greatest among many, because through a small and invisible virus it teaches us the reality of our existence. That death makes us equal, makes us vulnerable and dependent on the many who offer their own lives to protect us, take care of us, who also seek to heal and save our lives like theirs.
It continually invites us to do something, to start thinking in a new way or different from what we have done in recent years or what we used to do with more strength and creativity. I remember a motto in my youth that was written on the university wall: “Dare to be different”. Although the invitation is stimulating, we can respond in different ways that are answered by how we think or how we react in decisive moments. Often this involves an extraordinary effort to overcome and achieve something to overcome obstacles, fears, ideologies, thinking about others, getting good grades or a circle of friends. Perhaps it also serves to gain fame, prestige, money and, consequently, a high appreciation of others. But what Jesus proposes to us is to reinvent our way of being gospel to others.
However, when it is something that we wish for the good of many, we cannot rely on our own efforts, we need the help of others. They help us see a broad vision of a group of people or situations, give us opinions, valid reasons and suggestions for our concerns and doubts. Nobody can develop by himself or achieve a coexistence without counting on the support and presence of other people, whether in person or virtual, in our world of presence-absence.
He, who sends us, makes us available to face an uncertainty among the powerful of this world. Knowing that what attracts us is hidden by the screens of our reality. The Spirit of the Risen One calls us and invites us each time to seek and recognize his greatness and his humility among men. It’s like finding the power of a word in which a book gives certainty or assurance of what is said by the footnote that supports the veracity of what is said. Only when he seeks us from the depths does he integrate our life into God’s desire. Knowing his footprints is our peace and comfort despite how strange we may appear in our realities. The important thing is, to go out and be of Him, despite the harshness of the day to day among those who ignore our presence and conviction of always living with confidence in the Captain who puts his anchor in the middle of the sea of uncertainty of this world.
Availability opens the way; in addition, confidence is what heats the machine as the fuel necessary for the march. It is, how a magnet works, that it attracts everything to its center, but only objects that have compatible properties can be collected, recognized, brought together, and make an authentic cohesion despite their strangeness, to manifest their capacity and greatness. Thus, let us attribute to Him, whom we call “the Mighty One”, the most attractive love that humans can welcome, love, and understand.
Nini Rebollos