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Work, or Being that Is Communicated
A captain in the US Army, an entrepreneur in Kenya, an astrophysicist.
Problems
to solve, results to achieve. Three stories of how man’s energy, when reached
by Christ, gives form to things, in charity
by Riccardo Piol
What does the work of a US Army captain whose job is recruiting have in common
with that of an entrepreneur thrown into Kenya to help young people learn a trade
and that of an astrophysicist who studies the origins of the universe? Three
such different professions have little to do with each other. And yet, hearing
David Jones, Stefano Montaccini, and Marco Bersanelli speak, we intuit that there
is a point in common; it emerges as a question, but also as the beginning of
a lived experience. Work is not merely “doing things,” applying a
learned professional skill, but it is a sincere engagement with reality, with
oneself and the meaning of everything. The problems to be solved, results to
be achieved, the salary to be taken home–in short, what gives shape to
the workday world of everyone–in their stories becomes concrete as the
necessary condition for discovering the ultimate purpose and the real savor of
every action, whether routine or out of the ordinary.
As Captain David Jones recounts, “For me, terrorism, the war in Afghanistan
and Iraq, and all the various conflicts are not abstract geopolitical events.
I have actually recruited men and women who have been sent to these war zones,
and many of them have been seriously injured or even killed in combat.” In
situations like this, asking oneself why one does a certain job, the value of
what one is doing, becomes inevitable. And the problem is not to find a surface
consistency, but to answer a question about the meaning of one’s actions. “Every
day I ask myself if my being a Catholic and being a soldier can fit together.
And the conclusion I have reached is that the two things can fit together: my
job is being a soldier, but my vocation is to become a saint.” And this
is how it becomes possible to have a human relationship with the soldiers, to
share the grief of families who lose children in the war, even to “be glad
while serving in the military.”
What is possible in the States for a restless personality like Captain Jones
happens also in Nairobi, Kenya, where Stefano Montaccini has worked for six years.
A little more than a year ago he was about to leave Africa. “I didn’t
see any more developments in my job and so I had started thinking about boundless
prairies, about America,” where it seemed that the desire to build, to
give a form to creativity, could find proper space. Then came a phone call, an
exchange of e-mail messages, and Stefano remained in Nairobi, at the St Kizito
School where more than 400 young Kenyans learn a trade. No “boundless prairies”?
Not at all. Without having to cross the Ocean, the prairies opened up in a succession
of opportunities, resulting in an employment agency for youth, initiatives and
groups to help small businesses get started, contacts with firms, and even projects
with Kenyan government ministries, municipal administrations, and institutions.
In short, the boundless prairies were right there at home; all it took was knowing
how to look for them. And to make this discovery, all Montaccini did was ask
and obey friends who pushed him to take seriously the desire to build something
that corresponded to the stature of his desire. “I was not looking for
the confirmation of an idea of my own, but the truth about myself,” the
chance to work, with the zest of someone who knows that by building works he
is discovering his life together with someone.
While Montaccini wanted a change of scene in order to find a new job, this idea
must never have entered Marco Bersanelli’s mind. Better known as “Binocolo”–“Spyglass”– Bersanelli
says, “I am doing the job I always dreamed of as a child, because I have
always felt a fascination for the vastness of reality.” His career as a
physicist and his study of the universe were the normal fulfillment of a desire
that still continues today. But the method that enabled this desire to be fulfilled
was anything but normal. A dinner with friends and the proposal dropped as if
by chance to go to America for post-graduate study, then the encounter with a
professor as complicated as he was a genius, research at the South Pole, and
now involvement in a project with NASA and the European Space Agency… Year
after year, the work increases and demands greater and greater commitment, but
the family is growing too–now there are three children and they too demand
time, space, and energy, just as do the Movement responsibilities. How to fit
it all together? “I went to see Fr Giussani, because it seemed to me I
needed help in this situation,” says Binocolo, “a balance point among
all these things,” so as to live them “in the most correct way.” But
the answer threw him off-balance and moved the question onto another plane. The
problem is not the balance point, but realizing that “when you are dealing
with your wife and children, with your friends in the Movement, when you are
studying the universe, when you do each of these things, you are dealing with
Christ.” This is a discovery–one that changes your consciousness
of work and of life, as Giancarlo Cesana said, bringing the evening to a close.