Living at High Altitude
Simone Riva - There are places, such as mountains, that seem made to inspire awe, where it is possible to rediscover a unique perspective on reality. The mountains are undoubtedly one of these places.
Those who have the opportunity to visit them will discover this for themselves. In the mountains, everything is designed to change the direction of your gaze, to restore your desire to rise, and to accept the challenge of being struck by the details that the Creator has scattered in the most remote corners, so that one day, someone might notice and enjoy them.
The sun has a new light, and even the rain falls gently. The fresh air feels like an embrace, and the colors rest the eyes, so often dazed from staring at the works of humankind.
The mountain does not take away fatigue; it does not give away its views freely, nor does it spare you sweat. This is why it is our friend: it does not do the walking for us and, lacking the gift of wonder itself, it needs someone who can feel it.
Walking along the paths with friends, everything looks different. We talk about our lives, the challenges we are facing, and the unpredictable trials that lie around the corner. But one has only to look at what surrounds them to immediately think that nothing they are experiencing or hearing can be disheartening. If what you see at six thousand feet is real, then even the bumps in the road at lower altitudes can be put into perspective.
St. Paul effectively reveals the secret to all this in his letter to the Colossians: “All things were created through him and for him” (Col 1:16).
Nothing exists that does not have Christ as its mediator and its destiny. And in creation, one subject becomes the centerpiece of this creative initiative: humanity. Distracted and stubborn as we may be, we remain the ones eagerly awaited by the true and tireless worker, God, who bets everything on a thrill, a tremor reawakened in us.
In his writing, Mario Rigoni Stern describes this sensation:I often ask people: have you ever seen a sunrise in the mountains? Climb the mountain while it is still dark and wait for the sun to rise. It is a spectacle that no other means created by man can give you, this spectacle of nature. At a certain moment, before the sun comes out from behind the horizon, there is a tremor. It is not the air that has moved; it is something that makes the grass tremble, that makes the leaves tremble if there are trees around, the air itself. It is a thrill that also runs through your skin. And for me, it is the thrill of creation that the sun brings us every morning. You will hear, for example, the song of the redstart, then you will hear the robin, and then maybe you will see a roe deer. The roe deer is a nocturnal animal; you begin to see it returning to the woods. You spot it and then it disappears. The image that emerges is that of a deer, and then, perhaps, when the sky is clear and the stars have disappeared, you realize that an eagle is flying above you. But first, you felt the thrill.
This “thrill” speaks of an impetus of life. It tells us that the things within us are not meant to vanish and that our existence is not a fraud, even when it seems to turn its back on us. There is One who, passing by, notices us, stops—moved with deep compassion—and takes care of us.
The Good Samaritan presents himself to our hearts as the true alternative to nothingness. He knows that we can live life at a high altitude, without spending our days “outside ourselves.” And He waits. He waits patiently for that same presence that captivated John and Andrew at the beginning to be recognized by many others.
This is why, as Luigi Giussani wrote, "following is the most reasonable attitude before the Christian event":
Today's culture considers it impossible to know and change oneself and reality ‘only’ by following a person. In our age, the person is not seen as an instrument of knowledge and change; the former is understood reductively as analytical and theoretical reflection, and the latter as practice and application of rules. Instead, John and Andrew, the first two who encountered Jesus, learned to know differently and to change themselves and reality precisely by following that exceptional person. From the moment of that first encounter, the method began to unfold over time. (Luigi Giussani, From Faith to Method: Notes from the Assembly of Leaders, November 1993)
The author has not revised the notes and its translation performed by the staff of epochalchange.org staff.
