“Why not just live in a fake world?”: this is how we began the discussion. Just like every Saturday, Giovanni, Ruben and I get together with a small group of high schoolers, between 13 and 17 years old. We never know how many will come: sometimes there are just 3 or 4, other times there are 15. For the most part, they are from our neighborhood; some come from the more poorer area, a little favela at the center of the University district in Bogotá where, in 2016, the diocese entrusted us with a parish. Others are students of Giovanni, who cross the city using public transport in a trip that takes an hour. Today, there were six of them. We proposed to them to watch the movie, The Truman Show. “Why not just accept living in a fake world?” I ask. In the responses, there is no hesitation: “Because no.” Living a fake life has no attractiveness. We decide to press forward: “Why does Truman choose to take up the journey that brings him to the confines of that world that was built up around him?”. The interpretations are various: from the encounter with the father who disappeared during a storm to the desire to become an explorer. At the end, however, all of the hypotheses converge: what moves Truman is the encounter with Lauren, the girl he falls in love with at the end of the years of college, who reveals to him the lie of the world in which he lives. A seed planted in his youth, almost forgotten and yet still maturing over the years, brings him to take up the journey. We decide to live in the truth when we encounter someone who loves us, who tells us the truth of ourselves and of the world that surrounds us.
There is an inexhaustible strength in communion, in being together
This is also our task with these kids. Everything we offer them, from the games to the conversations, is nothing but an attempt to show the beauty of truth, of true friendship, of a more authentic way of being together, of using their time, of looking at school and study. The dialogues are always hard: it is difficult to look at each other, to tell each other the truth, not to hide behind easy laughter, not to get lost in that way of treating each other learned on the street, which is all about provocation and arguing. In these months, there have been many beautiful things that have happened: some of the boys have opened up in personal dialogue with us, sharing their grief over their brother’s suicide or their fears for the future. These are not questions that are easily answered: we simply want to live them together, without running away from the sharp edges of life that hurt us.
There have been many difficult moments too: the unheeded reminders, the outbursts of violence, verbal and otherwise. Sometimes we found ourselves waiting in vain for them on Saturday afternoons. But in all these months, it never crossed our minds to give up, to throw in the towel. Why? There is an inexhaustible strength in communion, in being together, in sharing with each other what we want to propose to them and the desire for them to participate in what we also participate in. Being together has continually renewed each of our endeavors, reinvigorated patience, awakened the creativity needed to deal with all of the difficulties. Doing everything so that something true emerges with them, in short, even if then that kernel of truth goes back to being submerged in the lies that their lives are full of: the lie of pride, the attempt to pretend that we don’t need anything, the illusion that we are great, strong. Communion is truly the secret of perseverance. Just like with Truman: we do not give up on our endeavor to live and propose truth because there is someone who loves us. Someone who waits for us out there but also accompanies us in the midst of the storm, like that picture made of newspaper clippings that we constantly look at to keep sailing.
