I have asked some very young and very old people (who shall remain nameless) to recall their earliest memories, with amusing and striking results. Some remember an embrace, some a loved one beside them, or a family event. One beloved daughter told me her earliest recollection was a paper cut, and the experience of an unsympathetic father (who told her she would be fine, and has since repented of his callousness). Every person remembers in their earliest days one thing in particular which occurred many times: lying on the grass and watching the sky.
I have prompted the memory in those I interviewed, as it does not always come to mind. But cast your mind back and it is there. The word ‘peace’ seems always to be used for it. I can remember lying outside in the front garden of our family home, with bushes around me and the sky above. It was a moment of silence, and contemplation of something.
It seems clear that there is no loneliness or want associated with the memory. There is no sense of boredom, or the desire to be entertained, or to be ‘somewhere else’. Instead there is a sense of wonder, an assurance of purpose, and a wordless realisation that one is not alone and that someone has placed us here.
It seems natural to say that we know God is present in such moments, and that we must have spent many hours doing this when we were small, when we had no want of some other diversion. This seems to me the universal introduction, offered in the greatest gentleness, to the most important person in our lives, who wishes us to know that we are his, and lets us rest within that knowledge. We might call this memory a closeness to joy.
I do not feel that it is too much, if we remember, to think that we understood that this was a person with whom we wished to be always — someone we already knew, and with whom we had been all the time. For it seems to me that we are introduced to the contemplation of God by knowing him. This is of vital importance to me, for I cannot imagine any other way of really coming to know him.
If he is eternal, and makes me for eternity, I was made to know and love him from the start. If I have to invent some way of knowing my Creator, he may as well be an alien to me, or a mere deity. It seems that our natural understanding of God is widely recognised, though few care to mention it; many studies show that children ‘believe in God’, which is another way of saying that we all do until we do not.
If we do not, it may be because we do not want to. Of course, no one is forcing us to remember that we once did. It seems unsurprising that instead of recalling the joy of peaceful contemplation, we are plagued with very different distractions which hunt for our attention and devotion instead.
It is difficult to go one hundred feet in a public place in any Western country and find children not at play but on screens. Before we cast the first stone at parents or at Silicon Valley (that bottomless pit of digital villainy), we must look to ourselves. It is possible that we have preferred distraction – both for ourselves and, perhaps, for youngsters – even if it was our intention to protect their innocence and love of God, and to be present to them always.
We fear to be present, and to stop, and to ‘lose time’ by stepping away from the occupations and duties which follow us. We may even convince ourselves that it is better this way: to focus on survival, busyness, and ‘distraction for all’. It is tempting, especially if we are parents, to think that the day is survived through necessary distractions.
But we may have underestimated children, and ourselves, by forgetting what we once knew: we do not need endless diversion, nor frivolous ‘connection’ at all times. I feel sure that we can remember our naturally contemplative side and see all the beauty and drama of God’s world.
My father once warned me: ‘If you cannot stop to hear the birds sing, something is terribly wrong.’ If we cannot stop to see what children wish to show us, that too is very sad. It may be the greatest challenge of our lives today to remember how we ought to see the world.
When we were young, every day felt like an age. Even empty rooms were places where the world could be full of possibilities. It is these quiet places which speak the truth of an ever-present God, who is more interesting than distraction.
For the silence, our presence, and this moment we are in – these are the things which are real. Without this place, we face the risk of becoming strangers to the one for whom we are made.
You may see parents like me deny their children smartphones and insist on silence and attention at Mass, and at other times. It is worth remembering that this is not taking something from children, but allowing them to rest in the presence of the most important person in their lives and to cultivate space for the still, small voice of God.
This is why silence sits within the liturgy, in which our stillness becomes the greatest act of worship we offer while Christ offers himself for us. It is very consoling to realise that we have always known how to come to this moment, and that we have been prepared for it since we were very young.
I do not say that all screens are the mark of the Beast – we are blessed by innovation if that innovation serves the common good. I am looking at a screen at present. But screens and entertainment take us somewhere else, and they are a powerful enemy of presence.
Twenty years ago I undertook a survey on the streets of London, asking hundreds of people what they watched on television. None of them knew. When asked to name three things they frequently tuned in to, they were helpless – some desperate – and stared back in confusion.
Do you watch television? They did. How long for? They could not say. I would help: do you watch the news? They would look relieved. Yes. Many would then declare that they watched ‘nature documentaries’. It seemed clear that they may as well not have been there when the television was on.
But we can choose to be present rather than absent. It is a choice that must be cultivated. No amount of software bans and restrictions on ever-present screens will change us, though they may protect the most vulnerable, which is good.
We must choose to allow God to love us, to prepare ourselves to worship him in eternity, or to escape into the world instead. Even if we do not know how to begin, it is reassuring to know that if we take the harder path of choosing him, we are returning rather than beginning.
We become present to him again, just as he has always chosen to give himself utterly to us. We already know how to do this. It is never too late to look back at the sky.
