If the phrase "I feel in crisis" hadn't gone out of fashion, I'd say that sometimes I am in crisis during our Faith and Light meetings.
We gather—people of all ages, from six months to eighty years old—and it's always beautiful: we smile, we sing, we exchange a few words, and we always understand each other. What sometimes puts me in crisis is the presence of C., or R., or E., or L. Their presence unsettles me, because it's a presence that doesn't ask for anything explicitly but is always there, always reminding you that there is another person facing you; because they are asking me for something, and most of the time I can't understand what they want, and I'd bang my head against a wall trying to figure it out; but most of all because most of the time they say nothing, and I can't find a way to communicate with them, even though I can see—through their eyes, their gestures, the sounds they make—that they're trying to speak.
This is what's terrible about the lack of communication, but also what's fascinating about it. There must be a way to understand each other, even without all the words, the written letters, the conventional gestures made only out of habit.
And little by little, communication takes shape through small things: a hand squeezed hard as a sign of friendship, greater attention to what they want, a language made of music, or expressed through a ball thrown always to the same spot.
To some it might seem like wasting time, something pointless. It's not. Real communication happens, even if for two hours we haven't spoken (which isn't possible anyway). I don't know if they received anything from me. I gave everything I had—a smile, a game of catch. What I certainly received is so much simplicity, I who so often think of myself as such an important person. Maybe I learned to pay a little more attention to those beside me, to listen for voices other than my own. Maybe—at least for tonight—I understood that when I get home, I shouldn't feel I have the right to treat my brother badly, or refuse to help my mother.
Still, walking home, I'm full of doubts. Did this afternoon matter at all? Will they recognize me next time?
I thank you, Lord. They recognized me again. They ran toward me without saying anything, but with a big smile. Who knows if it was meant for me...
- Valeria Levi della Vida, 1976