Look How Beautiful This Stick Is!
On a forest path, around Normafa in Budapest, before Christmas
Q: Do you start conversations with parents if you meet them in the forest?
A: No, I would embarrass them. Instead of that, I put away what I had to say, and write it down later. They may read it, or it might get to the hands of others who bring up children and pay attention to them.
Q: What did you hear?
A: There was a conversation, between young parents about practical everyday things when suddenly, from behind their backs came a child’s voice: “look, mum, what a beautiful stick!” Then I caught sight of the child, a five-year-old boy, with a stick of about two spans in his hand. His mum did not even look back, just answered absent-mindedly: “Really?” continuing the conversation with her partner. The man did not look back either.
Q: And the child?
A: The child was standing there, looking at the stick. He was looking at it, and then he threw it away. He picked up another stick, a longer, forked one with which he started to beat the shrubs. He didn’t tell his mother about this, though.
Q: And you?
A: I waited until they passed. I picked up the stick the boy threw away and tried to decipher it.
Q: Decipher what?
A: What may be beautiful about it? It was a rotting stick with pieces of bark falling off.
Q: Was it special?
A: I don’t know. I was holding it in the winter sun shining through the thicket, and I was staring at one of its decaying parts, which was brighter than the others. The sun was shining on it. It was beautiful, but I could not unravel the secret.
Q: What secret?
A: The little boy’s secret. Why did he find this particular stick beautiful? Why did he want to show this particular piece of wood to his mother?
Q: What if you had been able to call him back and ask him?
A: I didn’t dare. I would have disturbed the harmony of the family. They were walking there calmly, talking to each other, certainly like at other times. The child was free to search among the sticks, they didn’t stop him. His mother even answered him asking “Really?”, which was a kind of communication, some kind of attention, at least in sound, in words.
Q: What was the problem then?
A: The problem? That she didn’t look at the stick, she didn’t even bother to turn around. “Really?” was an answer casually given, uninspired by emotion or any real interest. It came out of a feigned interest and it was a commonplace.
Q: Do you often experience such things?
A: Almost always. Children are answered with half attention. Nobody ever tells young parents how they wrong their children by giving commonplace answers and by not paying attention.
Q: How they wrong their children? Aren’t you exaggerating?
A: How could I be? Can’t you see: children will give up asking questions if they are not given attentive answers.
Q: How could one possibly pay attention all the time?
A: True, it is not easy, but children learn from their own experiences. Somebody who at the age of five shows his mother something that he finds important or beautiful, may do the same thing later in his life. This is because he experienced many times that they listened to him and paid real attention to him. That is, heartfelt and interested attention. If, however, the stick he found was not important, then other things will not be important either, why should he bother to show them?
Q: Did you actually see that the child became disappointed?
A: Of course I did. He threw away the stick, and picked up another one. He didn’t trust his own judgment: perhaps the stick he found beautiful was not so beautiful after all. He would have needed support, especially from the person closest to him, his mother or in other cases, from his father or from his grandparents. The attention and interest is needed from somebody he appreciates. In this specific case, the father could not be considered since he didn’t even say a word.
Q: Aren’t you expecting too much? This was really just a trivial incident.
A: It wasn’t trivial. The child’s personality may be structured and built up, or damaged and worn in many similar moments. The boy didn’t insist that his mother should look at the stick, on hearing the first “Really?” thrown behind, he lost the initiative and gave up. On the basis of his previous experience, I think. He threw it right away and exchanged something else for what he found beautiful before.
Q: Can you take children this seriously?
A: They did not want to let the children go to Jesus…I have imagined this scene a hundred times from what the evangelist wrote. It wasn’t just anybody who wanted to send away those children from Jesus, but the apostles themselves. It has been natural for a very long time not to take children seriously. A rotting stick, what is it? See, the child even threw it away. Only I remain there alone, crouching, with the stick in my hand, looking for beauty.
Q: Have you found it?
A: No. After long reflection all I could find in it was my own joy, not his. By this time he may well have forgotten what he found so beautiful. The forest lost a beauty that mother and son could have observed together for some five minutes. Is five minutes such a long time?