Aren't I ashamed?! But seriously, aren't I ashamed?! I mean, how and why do I, a snot-nosed kid from 'this rotten generation' of young people who 'don't even know our own minds,' suddenly find myself talking about life and about what's good and what's bad?! Since when does the one at the base of the mountain have any say, when only the one who has reached the top has a word worth listening to, isn't that right? Well, where have you ever heard of an interview taken with a climber while they're still climbing?!
How dare I voice my opinion, who am I not to align myself with the norms of 'good living' of the era I live in? But how far have things gone, sir, that all these inexperienced people, all these clueless newcomers, have the right to an opinion? Come on, spare me these children's stories with noses buried in fable books and eyes lost in movies with princes and princesses, cut out this enthusiasm for life and with love to live,live to work! turn the other cheek, these are fairytales in our brainwashed minds about real life, about adult life! These are dreams and ideas, stop with the nonsense and get to work and routine!
We, from Generation Z, have the luxury of prioritizing all these poetic notions simply because we have no idea what hardship means, because they wanted “for us to have everything they didn’t have” and we woke up overnight with everything handed to us without lifting a finger, and now we preach to them about Christ among us, about Love being more important than company profit, about taking the time to look in the other's eyes, and not at them, but don't we really understand that we don't have time for such things? Efficiency and effectiveness, objectives and resources, budget deficit and public debt, who increases that GDP? We are all cogs in the economic mechanism and we'll see if there's time for anything else, but how many more times do I have to repeat it, what world do we live in?!
I mean, how could my future plan be reduced to Lord, I am your field, You come and work through me, what does it mean to surrender myself into His hands with all hope, to fight the desire to control everything, because He already knows better than me why and when He brought me into the orchestra of time and what instrument I must play, leave me alone with the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap and with the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin, because we are human and we must gather and be as productive as possible today, to secure our tomorrow, because to do list,! God gives you, but He doesn’t put it in your sack!God gives you, but He doesn’t put it in your sack! Look, I even got annoyed, Lord forgive me, the one not awake to reality!
How easily we, the young generation, speak of kindness and love, of empathy and real connection between people, we who haven't lived through the darkness, cold, and pain of the communist world, but seriously, aren't we ashamed not to be afraid like they were?! But seriously, aren't we ashamed to have been born after them, even out of them, in an era so different from theirs, with access to everything, just as they wished for us and struggled until their last breath to build for us?! But where does this colossal impertinence come from, that I dare to believe that, by ensuring our material comfort, God demands a different kind of work from us, that perhaps with our generation He wants to orchestrate something entirely different?! How can I believe that, no matter how angry I was at Him for not having born me in those times that deposited in me, as if in a bank account, their irrational nostalgia for something I haven't lived, no matter how much my soul yearns for times with orchards, love letters, balls with lace dresses and carriages, despite all this, no, God is not absurd, nothing is left to chance, He has His own plans, and it's no coincidence at all that He sent me exactly to the historical moment of this prosperous and technologically advanced chaos, not like a deaf hunting dog, but with the necessary gifts militarily packed in the baggage of my salvation, with everything I need to solve this different of equation, but who put all these foolish ideas in my head?!
But really, am I not ashamed to allow myself to observe that we too have our difficulties, but in another, much more subtle form, that only now are we dealing with the cunning one, and not with the evil one openly?! – when the material aspect is already satisfied (thanks to our parents' toil!), when there is order externally, and all that's left is the cleansing of the house within (much more terrifying, if you'll allow me), when you find yourself forced to face the unseen war (about which you know and understand nothing, because no one taught you), when the struggle compels you to develop your sixth sense: the inner discipline of one to whom truly all things are permitted, although not all are beneficial, the backbone of one who, literally, can taste everything (and is continuously tempted, from all sides, to bite into the sweetest poisons), but must keep only what is good, the shield of one constantly under bombardment with everything is relative and evil is actually good and good is actually evil and what is pleasant is good and what is painful is bad and love yourself and you are foolishly good and don't love like a fool anymore, because you are if you have, not if you love...
But really, am I not ashamed not to want to manage on my own, but to constantly seek to hold His hand, my only anchor on this world's turbulent sea of wickedness and lies, to throw myself, whimpering, at His feet and beg Him, with the salt of tears on my lips and eyes swollen with tears, to take me in His arms and teach me to love everything, everything, everything, especially the most painful injustices, to recognize His trace everywhere, especially in the greatest misfortunes, and to desperately beg Him not to let go of me, because without Him I am “a handful of earth at the bottom of a grave”, as Saint Cleopa said?! What does it mean to believe that if I lose Him, I've lost everything, and if I have Him, I have everything and more than that?!
But really, am I not embarrassed to run with mad enthusiasm for Life in a world that drags its eyes through concrete, am I not ashamed to shout from the top of my lungs that Christ has risen! Come, you too!, to want to live, to feel, to penetrate the moment down to the core of the atom's nucleus, defying the quanta of physics, to change all verbs and all pronouns to His person, bothering those whose only compass is what they must do?!
Good thing I woke up to swim against the current, to smash with a hammer over the rhythm numbed by so much super-speed, to unentangle myself slowly from the great roller's snarl, dancing barefoot on the lane next to the humming highway of cars carrying serious, busy, hurried people, with “work”!
But who am I to dream? Who am I to believe that Christ spoke His word for our times too? To believe that I can follow Him?! To believe that I can solve everything with a Lord, You come and help me!? Who am I to hope with stubborn conviction that I can live in His tranquility, amidst the dazzling, ultra-efficient, and self-sufficient rush of the 21st century (blessed be you, beloved and intricate century of speed to run to Christ!)?! Who am I not to care about the world's opinion, but only about that of my World beyond this world?!
And, after all, am I not ashamed to ask God (Whom??) to teach me to love (to what??) unconditionally, heavenly, like a fool, to teach me not to give a tithe from a salary, but only two cents, but to give them like the widow – renouncing all I have, so that only then can I truly begin to be!? Really? No? Am? I ashamed???
No. I am not. I really am not. Because do you know who I am? Daddy's girl. Exactly: the daughter of Him. He Himself told me: “And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me” (II Corinthians 6:18). And He does not lie.
I know I can do anything. With Him. I can do everything. And, most importantly, I want to. I want Him to give me strength to be able to. And that's all He needs – for me to want to.
A small child was once asked the classic question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Do you know what he answered? “I want to be a saint!” A saint!
“Be holy, for I am holy” (I Peter 1:16).
And I want to, and with Him I can. I stretched out the hands of my soul and with my fingers touched the key to the Kingdom of Heaven that lies in my heart. Christ in our midst and in center of us, of each one – in my heart, yours, his, hers, of anyone who receives the gift of being human.
P.S. Attention, secret disclosure: you can too! You all, all of you...All of us...
Will you help me make I a round and beautiful we? Please? We just have to want to!
Let's want to, together, without fear, without shame!
With shame, you die of hunger...
Ana Bănică