VSand what I’m looking for, said a man, it is the untraceable. » He opens the door of his library and shows you all the books he has written arranged on a shelf: “I searched badly, look at all that I found. » Then he tells the anecdote of Diderot writing in the dark and hastily, without seeing anything of what he is writing, a letter to the woman of his life, Sophie Volland: “Wherever there will be nothing, read that I love you. »
There is a silent drawing by Quino the Brilliant where we see a very important gentleman, director of a firm, seated behind a monumental desk. Through the window the rain is falling hard. The scene is seen by a puny employee, probably come to ask for a raise. The director, tired of being bothered by the whole world, picks up his phone and gives a reproachful order: the rain stops. immediately. The employee sags a little more in his chair.
Go to the big meeting
At the end of a conference, one day, a lady came to see me. She told me she was not afraid to die. She told me about her father who was like her, who was carried by faith and hope. He had a real curiosity to go to the big meeting. She had an incredible smile when she told me that and not at all the look of the enlightened, rather a kind of conviction that came with time, not at all arrogant or exalted, it seemed rather measured. Almost shy.
On Facebook not long ago, I came across a video of an eminently sympathetic priest. The face of the one who wore the cassock and the Roman collar was radiant, his voice frank and beautiful. He was speaking in front of the camera to an interlocutor whom he called “you”. He presented her with a record he had just composed, words and music. At the end he blessed him, said that he kept him in his prayers and recommended that he think carefully about buying his record.
Under the hullabaloo of the world
A poet once wrote in one of his books: “Being a poet today means suddenly starting to sing, in a street where no one passes. » One of his readers wrote him a long letter to tease him and tell him that poetry was the most important thing there is. That without her the world would collapse. The poet replied: “Don’t think I’m sad. I am like God. They will read me when I am dead. » In his diary, on the same date, we found a crossed out, almost indecipherable sentence: “My collection lies. »
When the woman I love got up earlier, I had a mad need to tell her that I loved her. As if death, night or misfortune were lurking and going to take her from me. I wanted to tell her that she was the other landscape in my life, the one that without her I wouldn’t have known. I wanted to tell him: “Without you, I couldn’t live. » But it was still dawn, the words inside remained in their sand, I simply said to him: ” I love you. »
Under the cacophony of the world where men believe it is essential to live, there is a silence, a vast country that we could inhabit in peace. The poet Jean Grosjean, to the question: “Who then is God? », respond : ” So little “, almost nothing, a voice that could begin to speak under the hubbub, the hullabaloo of the world.
In the evening of his life, Barrès said: “If Pascal had not lived, I would have had less pleasure in living. » And he compared the Thoughts to the roses of Jerusalem or Jericho, which are reborn when immersed in water. Blessed are those who are looking for you, Lord, happy are those who believe they have not yet found you. You expect them in the “you”.
Emmanuel Godo is a writer and poet. Latest books published: I have never traveled (Gallimard), But what face has your joy? (Salvator). Paul Claudel, life at the risk of joy (Deer) and recently the Passors of the Absolute (Artege).