In his new book Franco Arminio reflects on fragility, faith and loneliness in the post-Christian era, between poetry, exhibited trauma and the need for community.
Seeking grace in fragility should be everyone’s daily work. A constant work of «transforming a difficult condition into something that can give us a vision of the world, that makes us gain something from the loss. After all,” he sighs Franco Arminio«Jesus Christ this is what he taught us.” The grace of fragility is the new book (in prose) by this strange author who lives secluded, who presents himself as «paesologist» in the sense that he studies and loves and talks about the small towns ofNeglected Italy. Arminio also stands aside, like a small village in the Apennines, and perhaps for this reason he knows how to delve into the soul of the reader. They envy him, they even criticize him. His fault is to bring people to bookshops to buy – which is unheard of – poetry books. And now he’s even got it into his head to talk about spiritOf wedding ring and of prayerand even to inconvenience Jesus Christ.
An author off-axis in our time
How strange to hear the name on the lips of a successful author. But Arminio is strange, exactly. He also wrote a book with a priest practicing Christian meditation, Guidalberto Bormolini. It’s called Realize you are alivea hymn to the life we are losing. Because first of all we should realize that we are not really living, that we are missing something: not recognizing our fragility makes us even more fragile.
Fragility and the post-Christian horizon
Arminio repeats that Christ taught the grace of fragility but then adds: «The problem is that today Jesus Christ is a figure who says nothing to almost anyone, especially to the young generations, because they grew up in a post-Christian horizonthis is the truth. So this idea of transforming fragility into grace – which in my opinion is profoundly Christian – escapes us. The title of my book, therefore, is apparently absurd, because if we follow the rational, enlightened approach, fragility is something to be avoided, it is a misfortune. Instead, in the Christian approach, poverty is the basis for wealth, fragility is the way to get to heaven. But in this historical moment that title remains a bit absurd.”
Exhibited trauma and the market of fragility
To be honest, there is a lot of talk about fragility today, but it is as if it were a fragility exhibited, ostentatious. It’s in fashion trauma and the victim is the new hero. VIPs race to talk about their illnesses and injuries. We are full of traumatized minorities competing in the trauma market. Arminio almost smiles. «Neuroscientists remind us that if you practice bitterness you become bitterness, if a person continually talks about his problems that becomes the problem. When I say that we need to reveal our wounds, I also say that this is only good if we know how to reveal ours too Thank you. In the case of television hosts, of these characters here, it is clear that there is a mercantile use of fragility. And then trauma is one thing and whim is one thing.”
Federate the wounds
Arminio’s proposal is basically to seriously undress, to show one’s true wounds and to recognize oneself in those of others. He calls him «to bind the wounds». “I’m talking about getting to the bone,” he insists. «What is the underlying wound then? It’s the fact that we are alone in front of the mystery of deathand everyone deals with it in some way, but this is the original wound. One that humans must respond to collectively. Federating wounds does not mean federating tantrums or pseudotraumas. Those are just to attract attention, it’s another guise of the narcissism».
The cross, the digital and the anxiety of the present
Certainly in Christianity there is the transformation of fragility into grace, but there is also the comparison with crossthat is, death, pain, suffering, human limitation. A comparison that must be conducted without being overwhelmed. And this is what seems to be missing today: get used to everything-and-now of digitalfaced with the harshness of life we get crushed. It is the era of narcissism but also ofanxiety and of depression.
Loneliness and the end of the community
Here Arminio sighs. «It’s not like I know well how the world works… I have this suspicion: we are in a post-Christian society, I said before, right? That is, religion no longer exists or in any case if there is a religion it is that of money. This has significant consequences for each of us. You wake up in the morning and you are essentially alone, but you are not alone because you are a non-EU citizen, you are elderly or you are a problematic teenager: you are alone even if you are a journalist, if you are a poet, if you are anything. This wound, this laceration, the thought of death, was somehow naturally muffled when we were in a world where death existed. community. Today, however, this laceration is violent. I tell you I have a career, I make money, but in reality you simply move the horizon, and you find the laceration there. You leave it at nine in the morning, you find it again at midnight when you go to bed. You can get distracted, you can fill yourself with goods, relationships, successes, but then the wound reaches you. In a post-Christian world where there is no connection between individuals we no longer have gods rites that keep us together. In a convent, for example, there is an architecture of the day that is no longer present in our world, where everyone wakes up and builds a path to skidded. We are all drifters, we don’t have defined trajectories. In a distant time, people woke up in the morning and the bulk of the day was already done, this gave less anxiety, because they knew what to do.”
Nostalgia for God and surrogates for faith
It’s bitter but true. Once upon a time we had a place in the world, a clearer place in a more defined horizon. «It was a company that could have had some gloom and closure, but we are underestimating it damage of the absence of God. I insist on this element, the book insists on this. There is one longing for GodAt least I feel that way. I would like to return to God, but I would like to return together with others, in a collective return. If we go back to believing in something, in my opinion we heal the wound I was talking about, otherwise this wound tears us apart, devastates us. This is my feeling.”
Poetry as a last refuge
And it’s a shared feeling, actually, even if we don’t fully realize it. They flourish everywhere surrogates of faith. There technology stands as a great religion in our time. THE’ecologism it has become an apocalyptic cult. Even on food issues we divide into cults and sects, not to mention politics. «But these are all things that give us loneliness. Politics today is a place of solitude: you can vote right or left but what nourishment does that belonging give you? Nobody, because you can’t be on the right just because those on the left disgust you or vice versa. It makes sense to be right or left if this thing inflames your life, fills it with meaning. The same goes for ecologism. If it’s simply a way to appear to be on the right side, it’s useless. It takes one profound truth that should fuel your day. But these are all superficial truths. I think I found it in the writingat least there, a real basis. When everything collapses I know that the poetry helps me. I have recourse to that sort of sister, a very faithful sister. A woman can leave you, your son can leave you, the party can leave you. But poetry, at least this is my great illusion, poetry does not leave me”, concludes Arminio: “We all need something, a mother. That is, we cannot live in a world where we do not have someone who protects us as deeply as our mother protects us. We need to be loved and to love. But this is a world that wants to do without fundamental things and it is useless to look for substitutes for God. It cannot be replaced so lightly».
