Flash Mob... French Style

I was reading a newspaper and I found an article about a demonstration held at the beginning of September in the square at the Centre Pompidou, around a column on top of which was placed an enormous gilded vase. Around this “sculpture,” more than 200 people were gathered. They had been contacted a few hours before by an Internet message, or an SMS. “Someone”–perhaps the organizers of this “ring o’ roses”–had given out leaflets to the participants explaining the program: they were to run around the vase for two minutes, calling out, “We are going to dance ring o’ roses around this vase until it rains and the golden flower blossoms.” This ring o’ roses included motor activity, too. Even though there was a heat wave, they had continually to open and close umbrellas. After doing all this, the participants went off in silence. After reporting the enthusiastic comments of the participants, the journalist concluded his article by saying, “…everyone obeyed, without knowing whom they were obeying or why.” This comment on that peculiar fact enlightened me on the question of the nothingness Fr Giussani speaks of in his message for Loreto. I thought: it can’t be possible to live in “nothingness” except like this: to obey, “without knowing whom they are obeying or why.” When this happens, just like them, I am running around something foreign to me, something that has nothing to do with my life, an intruder. If there is a risk of living reality “like a ring o’ roses around a gilded vase,” in my life I have the certainty that I have met a company of friends that throws me back into reality with a reason.