Learning to see the dawn

 

 

Paolo Cugini

 

 

You know how to discern the appearance of the earth and the sky; but why do you not discern the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right ? (Luke 12:56).

 

Dawn arrives silently. Before the sun appears, something changes in the contours of things: the darkness loses its solidity, distances become visible again, what seemed indistinct begins to take on a face. This happens in life too. Light doesn't always present itself as a definitive answer. Sometimes it's a discreet sign, a presence that imposes nothing yet opens a door. To recognize it, we must pause, let our eyes adjust, accept that reality holds more than what we can immediately see.

We are not alone on the journey of life. This insight does not erase the loneliness we sometimes feel, nor does it claim to explain every wound. Rather, it says that our existence is not limited to what we possess, measure, or control. There is a mystery that precedes and accompanies us: we can think of it at the origin of the universe, at the dawn of humanity, within the questions that every person carries within them. It is not simply the name of what we still ignore. It is the depth of what we encounter, that source of meaning that no explanation can consume.

Mystery doesn't necessarily reach us through extraordinary events. It can emerge in the ordinary fabric of everyday life: in a hand that supports without holding back, in a word that restores dignity, in a gesture of justice made when it would be more convenient to turn away. These are signs of life and love. They don't remove us from the responsibility of choosing, but rather reawaken it. They point us in the right direction: where someone is welcomed rather than excluded, where fragility is heard, where truth isn't sacrificed for convenience, something of the light can be glimpsed.

Perhaps one of the great tragedies of existence is precisely this: going through an entire life without recognizing the signs placed around us. Not because they were missing, but because our gaze was focused only on what produces an immediate result. We can see so much and understand so little. We can accumulate information without learning to read an encounter, a silence, a cry for help. When everything becomes an object to be used or an obstacle to be overcome, even the most immediate beauty risks remaining invisible.

We must therefore develop an inner sensitivity. Not a refuge separated from history, but a space where history can be deeply heard. Our inner life grows when we learn to pause before what questions us, without immediately drowning it out with an answer; when we distinguish authentic desire from the need to appear; when we allow the pain of others to interrupt our indifference. Silence, in this sense, is not the absence of the world. It is the ability to welcome it without reducing it to the noise of our busy lives.

Seeing into history does not mean attributing a hidden message to every event, nor transforming the Mystery into an easy explanation. There are sufferings in the face of which the most honest words remain questions. Discernment requires humility: not every glimmer is light, not every certainty opens the way to the truth. A sign must also be recognized by its fruits, by the life it preserves, by the freedom it respects, by the justice it makes possible. The light we imagine shining from eternity does not distance us from the concreteness of things: it helps us to look at them without possessing them and to judge our choices without hiding.

This is where the educational task of a father, a mother, and anyone who accompanies a person's growth begins. Educating cannot simply mean preparing someone to function in the world, achieving results, and adapting to demands. It also means helping a child, and then an adolescent, discover that within themselves lies a depth worth exploring and nurturing. Before even showing them a path, we must give space to their questions. Before filling every silence, we must show them that silence can be inhabited. Before offering explanations, we must teach them that wonder is not a weakness to be overcome.

This education takes shape in everyday gestures. In the adult who listens to a question without mocking it, who acknowledges a mistake, who knows how to apologize. In shared time without the urgency to fill it. In attentiveness to a person left on the margins, in caring for something that offers no immediate benefit. In this way, we learn to see beyond things, not to despise them, but to encounter their meaning. Material data tell us much about reality; however, they do not exhaust the questions about the value of a life, the meaning of a bond, the responsibility that arises from an encounter.

There is hope in the world when we encounter someone capable of recognizing the signs of the times. Not someone who possesses all the answers, but someone who can distinguish what opens life from what impoverishes it. Their gaze sees possibilities where habit sees only limitations; their presence makes perceptible a goodness that others had stopped waiting for. In these encounters, the path of a light that comes from afar, from the very origin of existence, seems to re-emerge, a light that continues to seek space in history. Hope does not deny the night: it recognizes that the night is not everything.

We have an infinite need for this light. We need it to avoid mistaking indifference for clarity, harshness for strength, resignation for wisdom. Darkness isn't just what scares us: it can also be what we become accustomed to, until we no longer feel its weight. Light unmasks it because it restores a face to those we had reduced to numbers, a history to those we had hastily judged, a possibility to what we considered lost. It doesn't promise a path without shadows. It allows us to pass through them without giving them the last word.

Recognizing the signs of life, love, and justice that the mystery places before us is therefore not an exercise reserved for the few. It is a way of inhabiting existence, a care that can be cultivated and shared. And what we recognize calls us to a response. A welcomed light becomes listening, caring, and the courage to do the good we can. We are not called simply to walk in the light, but to let it pass through us, so that others too can find the way. As happens at dawn: the first light does not yet illuminate everything, but it is enough to show that the journey can begin again.