Pop 89: 1,000,000 Stood Silent
By Madonna Hamel
I read a headline the other day: "Everyone is talking about Sydney's jeans." Really? Cuz, I'm not. And, seriously, with wars and famine, and tariffs and a new pope reminding us that Love is still the only answer, is the whole world really talking about a jean ad, again?
This time, the news (and here I hear my old radio producer moan: "That's NOT news!") revolves around a play on the words "good genes". The outrage is that the statement implies: ain't it great to be white. This would be racist. But the advertisers assure us they are not referring to skin colour, but Sydney's hips of a boy and breasts of a lactating mom.
Some media claim "she knows what she's got and she's rocking it." Rock away, m'dear, because the shelf life of your "gift" is short. You will get old. Or, god help you, sick or fat. Then nobody talks about you. And in your world, that's not so great. In the greater world, however, you will be forced to look inward.
Thankfully, truthfully, not EVERYbody is talking about bodies or practicing the celebration of bodies as objects and bait. There is a brand of feminism that has drunk the materialist-consumer Kool-Aid, and it's a big fat soul kill. They exploit themselves in a world crazily commodifying anything it can get its hands on. But it wasn't the kind I talked up when I was Sydney's age. It talked about the degree to which, when we just see bodies and not souls, we make people expendable. It's not a far leap from turning our bodies into bait to children starving in Palestine, Africa and poor communities on our own continent.
Turning a jean ad into a debate about race is turning a blind eye to the fact that kids are dying from starvation. It feeds the polemic the woke world is doggedly sticking to: the only issues worth talking about are race and gender. But when we speak of "issues," we do not speak of humans. Ranting from a home or office computer or a university lectern is keeping flesh-and-blood humanity at bay.
When we speak a language of ideology and apply it to any and every situation, we wear glasses that see issues, systems, ideas. This is not reality. Reality, as Pope Francis was fond of saying, is bigger than ideology.
Meanwhile, I know of at least a million people who weren't talking about jeans. Because, for a long while, they weren't even talking. They were silent. For long stretches of time, under a half moon, on a warm night in August, on the outskirts of Rome, a million young people prayed along with a kneeling Pope Leo.
Psalms were sung by a choir. Then, for ten minutes at a time, the place fell silent. Sirens from the city cracked the air. A plane flew overhead. But no one spoke until the next psalm was sung and then - again- blessed stillness and silence. Silent prayer, together.
No one was talking. And why aren't we talking about that? About a peaceful, united gathering of a million young people, far more spiritually mature than those of us caught up in polemics, ideologies and girls rocking a pair of jeans?
Eventually, the pope's assistant, standing beside him, nudges him, or so it seems. It's a funny characteristic of this pope, whom I have been watching since his first day. Besides moving with calm consideration and a relaxed athletic gait, he has a good catching arm, and even encourages people to toss their stuffies and flags to snag them out of mid-air. This is a point of concern for security, as they cannot control what is in those stuffies. He has a repertoire of smiles that include a kind of half-grin on one side of his mouth that makes me wonder what he is thinking. His eyes often are sad, troubled and close to tears. And he can kneel for hours in prayer until nudged by his wing man with a kind of: "Ok, we gotta get this show on the road, you've got a crowd behind you." Or so it appears.
That night he answered thee questions in three languages, Italian, Spanish and English posed by three young people. And, not surprisingly, none of them asked about genes or jeans.
"Where can we find the courage to choose and to make wise decisions?" one of them asked. His response: "To choose is a fundamental human act. Looking at it closely, we realize that it is not just a matter of choosing something, but of choosing someone. When we make a choice, in the strict sense, we decide who we want to become. The most important choice is the decision about the direction of our life: What kind of man do you want to be? What kind of woman? Choose from love, always from love."
Racism exists, sexism exists. Focusing incessantly on these issues feeds them. We are defining ourselves by our endless vigilance around them. This is more than ironic or hypocritical, it is destructive and ends in war.
The solution is to get our souls back - give them life support and act from a place where we can see each other as humans, not members of a sect, party, or ideology. I'm not saying some people don't behave badly, I'm saying, as did the pope, that we must begin with a heart full of love, see the whole person.
Whenever I've participated in a vigil, I have found more understanding and belonging among that silent crowd than at any debate or board meeting. The intimacy of the silent moment, especially while holding candles, makes for peaceful coexistence.
The young people stayed all night at Tor Vegata, keeping vigil not only for themselves, but the whole world. As the pope left, he beckoned them to get some rest, and he would see them again in the morning.