T E X T

If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses. The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.

Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.

The immediate health consequences for inactive children and their families are worrisome. Childhood obesity, which is linked to lack of exercise, is common, as is the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems related to being overweight among children as young as 6.

But the long-term financial costs of inactivity in the young, both for them and society as a whole, have never been quantified. So for the new study, which was published this week in Health Affairs, researchers with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other institutions decided to create a bogglingly complex computer model of what the future could look like if we do or do not get more of our children moving.

The researchers began by gathering as much public data as is currently available about the health, weight and physical activity patterns of all 31.7 million American children now aged 8 to 11, using large-scale databases from the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups.

The researchers fed this information into a computerized modeling program that created an electronic avatar for every American child today. In line with reality, two-thirds of these children were programmed to rarely exercise and many were overweight or obese.

The scientists then had the simulated children grow up. Using estimations about how calorie intake and activity patterns affect body weight, the program changed each virtual child’s body day-by-day and year-by-year into adulthood. Most became increasingly overweight.

As the simulated children became adults, the scientists then modeled each one’s health, based on obesity-associated risks for heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer, and also the probable financial price of dealing with those diseases (adjusted for future inflation), both in terms of direct expenses for hospitalizations, drugs and so on, and lost productivity because of someone’s being ill.

The results were staggering. According to the computer model, the costs of today’s 8- to 11- year-olds being inactive and consequently overweight would be almost $3 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year once the children reached adulthood and for decades until their deaths.

But when the researchers tweaked children’s activity levels within their model, the numbers began to look quite different. If they presumed that, in an imaginary America, half of all children exercised vigorously for about 25 minutes three times a week, such as during active recess or sports or, more ambitiously, ran around and moved for at least an hour every day, which is the amount of youth exercise recommended by the C.D.C., their virtual lives were transformed.

Most obviously, the incidence of childhood obesity fell by more than 4 percent, a change that resonated throughout the simulated children’s lives and society. There were about half a million fewer cases of adult-onset heart disease, diabetes, cancer and strokes in this simulation, and the society-wide costs associated with these illnesses dropped by about $32 billion every year if the children romped about for 25 minutes three times per week and by almost $37 billion if they moved for an hour every day.

The impacts were even more substantial when the researchers assumed that 100 percent of the children who are now sedentary got regular exercise. In this scenario, the annual total costs during adulthood from obesity-associated medical expenses and lost productivity plummeted by about $62 billion when children were active three times a week and by more than $120 billion every year when all of the virtual children played and moved for at least an hour each day.

From: https://www.nytimes.com May 3, 2017

T E X T

If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses. The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.

Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.

The immediate health consequences for inactive children and their families are worrisome. Childhood obesity, which is linked to lack of exercise, is common, as is the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems related to being overweight among children as young as 6.

But the long-term financial costs of inactivity in the young, both for them and society as a whole, have never been quantified. So for the new study, which was published this week in Health Affairs, researchers with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other institutions decided to create a bogglingly complex computer model of what the future could look like if we do or do not get more of our children moving.

The researchers began by gathering as much public data as is currently available about the health, weight and physical activity patterns of all 31.7 million American children now aged 8 to 11, using large-scale databases from the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups.

The researchers fed this information into a computerized modeling program that created an electronic avatar for every American child today. In line with reality, two-thirds of these children were programmed to rarely exercise and many were overweight or obese.

The scientists then had the simulated children grow up. Using estimations about how calorie intake and activity patterns affect body weight, the program changed each virtual child’s body day-by-day and year-by-year into adulthood. Most became increasingly overweight.

As the simulated children became adults, the scientists then modeled each one’s health, based on obesity-associated risks for heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer, and also the probable financial price of dealing with those diseases (adjusted for future inflation), both in terms of direct expenses for hospitalizations, drugs and so on, and lost productivity because of someone’s being ill.

The results were staggering. According to the computer model, the costs of today’s 8- to 11- year-olds being inactive and consequently overweight would be almost $3 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year once the children reached adulthood and for decades until their deaths.

But when the researchers tweaked children’s activity levels within their model, the numbers began to look quite different. If they presumed that, in an imaginary America, half of all children exercised vigorously for about 25 minutes three times a week, such as during active recess or sports or, more ambitiously, ran around and moved for at least an hour every day, which is the amount of youth exercise recommended by the C.D.C., their virtual lives were transformed.

Most obviously, the incidence of childhood obesity fell by more than 4 percent, a change that resonated throughout the simulated children’s lives and society. There were about half a million fewer cases of adult-onset heart disease, diabetes, cancer and strokes in this simulation, and the society-wide costs associated with these illnesses dropped by about $32 billion every year if the children romped about for 25 minutes three times per week and by almost $37 billion if they moved for an hour every day.

The impacts were even more substantial when the researchers assumed that 100 percent of the children who are now sedentary got regular exercise. In this scenario, the annual total costs during adulthood from obesity-associated medical expenses and lost productivity plummeted by about $62 billion when children were active three times a week and by more than $120 billion every year when all of the virtual children played and moved for at least an hour each day.

From: https://www.nytimes.com May 3, 2017

T E X T

If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses. The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.

Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.

The immediate health consequences for inactive children and their families are worrisome. Childhood obesity, which is linked to lack of exercise, is common, as is the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems related to being overweight among children as young as 6.

But the long-term financial costs of inactivity in the young, both for them and society as a whole, have never been quantified. So for the new study, which was published this week in Health Affairs, researchers with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other institutions decided to create a bogglingly complex computer model of what the future could look like if we do or do not get more of our children moving.

The researchers began by gathering as much public data as is currently available about the health, weight and physical activity patterns of all 31.7 million American children now aged 8 to 11, using large-scale databases from the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups.

The researchers fed this information into a computerized modeling program that created an electronic avatar for every American child today. In line with reality, two-thirds of these children were programmed to rarely exercise and many were overweight or obese.

The scientists then had the simulated children grow up. Using estimations about how calorie intake and activity patterns affect body weight, the program changed each virtual child’s body day-by-day and year-by-year into adulthood. Most became increasingly overweight.

As the simulated children became adults, the scientists then modeled each one’s health, based on obesity-associated risks for heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer, and also the probable financial price of dealing with those diseases (adjusted for future inflation), both in terms of direct expenses for hospitalizations, drugs and so on, and lost productivity because of someone’s being ill.

The results were staggering. According to the computer model, the costs of today’s 8- to 11- year-olds being inactive and consequently overweight would be almost $3 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year once the children reached adulthood and for decades until their deaths.

But when the researchers tweaked children’s activity levels within their model, the numbers began to look quite different. If they presumed that, in an imaginary America, half of all children exercised vigorously for about 25 minutes three times a week, such as during active recess or sports or, more ambitiously, ran around and moved for at least an hour every day, which is the amount of youth exercise recommended by the C.D.C., their virtual lives were transformed.

Most obviously, the incidence of childhood obesity fell by more than 4 percent, a change that resonated throughout the simulated children’s lives and society. There were about half a million fewer cases of adult-onset heart disease, diabetes, cancer and strokes in this simulation, and the society-wide costs associated with these illnesses dropped by about $32 billion every year if the children romped about for 25 minutes three times per week and by almost $37 billion if they moved for an hour every day.

The impacts were even more substantial when the researchers assumed that 100 percent of the children who are now sedentary got regular exercise. In this scenario, the annual total costs during adulthood from obesity-associated medical expenses and lost productivity plummeted by about $62 billion when children were active three times a week and by more than $120 billion every year when all of the virtual children played and moved for at least an hour each day.

From: https://www.nytimes.com May 3, 2017

T E X T

If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses. The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.

Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.

The immediate health consequences for inactive children and their families are worrisome. Childhood obesity, which is linked to lack of exercise, is common, as is the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems related to being overweight among children as young as 6.

But the long-term financial costs of inactivity in the young, both for them and society as a whole, have never been quantified. So for the new study, which was published this week in Health Affairs, researchers with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other institutions decided to create a bogglingly complex computer model of what the future could look like if we do or do not get more of our children moving.

The researchers began by gathering as much public data as is currently available about the health, weight and physical activity patterns of all 31.7 million American children now aged 8 to 11, using large-scale databases from the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups.

The researchers fed this information into a computerized modeling program that created an electronic avatar for every American child today. In line with reality, two-thirds of these children were programmed to rarely exercise and many were overweight or obese.

The scientists then had the simulated children grow up. Using estimations about how calorie intake and activity patterns affect body weight, the program changed each virtual child’s body day-by-day and year-by-year into adulthood. Most became increasingly overweight.

As the simulated children became adults, the scientists then modeled each one’s health, based on obesity-associated risks for heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer, and also the probable financial price of dealing with those diseases (adjusted for future inflation), both in terms of direct expenses for hospitalizations, drugs and so on, and lost productivity because of someone’s being ill.

The results were staggering. According to the computer model, the costs of today’s 8- to 11- year-olds being inactive and consequently overweight would be almost $3 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year once the children reached adulthood and for decades until their deaths.

But when the researchers tweaked children’s activity levels within their model, the numbers began to look quite different. If they presumed that, in an imaginary America, half of all children exercised vigorously for about 25 minutes three times a week, such as during active recess or sports or, more ambitiously, ran around and moved for at least an hour every day, which is the amount of youth exercise recommended by the C.D.C., their virtual lives were transformed.

Most obviously, the incidence of childhood obesity fell by more than 4 percent, a change that resonated throughout the simulated children’s lives and society. There were about half a million fewer cases of adult-onset heart disease, diabetes, cancer and strokes in this simulation, and the society-wide costs associated with these illnesses dropped by about $32 billion every year if the children romped about for 25 minutes three times per week and by almost $37 billion if they moved for an hour every day.

The impacts were even more substantial when the researchers assumed that 100 percent of the children who are now sedentary got regular exercise. In this scenario, the annual total costs during adulthood from obesity-associated medical expenses and lost productivity plummeted by about $62 billion when children were active three times a week and by more than $120 billion every year when all of the virtual children played and moved for at least an hour each day.

From: https://www.nytimes.com May 3, 2017

T E X T

If all of the children who currently are sedentary started exercising every day, societies could save enormous amounts of money in the coming decades and have healthier citizens as a whole, according to a remarkable new study. In the United States alone, we could expect to save more than $120 billion every year in health care and associated expenses. The study is the first to use sophisticated computer simulations to arrive at a literal and sobering societal price tag for allowing our children to be sedentary.

Inactivity is, of course, widespread among young people today. Recent research shows that in the United States and Europe, physical activity tends to peak at about age 7 for both boys and girls and tail off continually throughout adolescence. More than two-thirds of children in the United States rarely exercise at all.

The immediate health consequences for inactive children and their families are worrisome. Childhood obesity, which is linked to lack of exercise, is common, as is the incidence of Type 2 diabetes and other health problems related to being overweight among children as young as 6.

But the long-term financial costs of inactivity in the young, both for them and society as a whole, have never been quantified. So for the new study, which was published this week in Health Affairs, researchers with the Global Obesity Prevention Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and other institutions decided to create a bogglingly complex computer model of what the future could look like if we do or do not get more of our children moving.

The researchers began by gathering as much public data as is currently available about the health, weight and physical activity patterns of all 31.7 million American children now aged 8 to 11, using large-scale databases from the Census Bureau, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other groups.

The researchers fed this information into a computerized modeling program that created an electronic avatar for every American child today. In line with reality, two-thirds of these children were programmed to rarely exercise and many were overweight or obese.

The scientists then had the simulated children grow up. Using estimations about how calorie intake and activity patterns affect body weight, the program changed each virtual child’s body day-by-day and year-by-year into adulthood. Most became increasingly overweight.

As the simulated children became adults, the scientists then modeled each one’s health, based on obesity-associated risks for heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer, and also the probable financial price of dealing with those diseases (adjusted for future inflation), both in terms of direct expenses for hospitalizations, drugs and so on, and lost productivity because of someone’s being ill.

The results were staggering. According to the computer model, the costs of today’s 8- to 11- year-olds being inactive and consequently overweight would be almost $3 trillion in medical expenses and lost productivity every year once the children reached adulthood and for decades until their deaths.

But when the researchers tweaked children’s activity levels within their model, the numbers began to look quite different. If they presumed that, in an imaginary America, half of all children exercised vigorously for about 25 minutes three times a week, such as during active recess or sports or, more ambitiously, ran around and moved for at least an hour every day, which is the amount of youth exercise recommended by the C.D.C., their virtual lives were transformed.

Most obviously, the incidence of childhood obesity fell by more than 4 percent, a change that resonated throughout the simulated children’s lives and society. There were about half a million fewer cases of adult-onset heart disease, diabetes, cancer and strokes in this simulation, and the society-wide costs associated with these illnesses dropped by about $32 billion every year if the children romped about for 25 minutes three times per week and by almost $37 billion if they moved for an hour every day.

The impacts were even more substantial when the researchers assumed that 100 percent of the children who are now sedentary got regular exercise. In this scenario, the annual total costs during adulthood from obesity-associated medical expenses and lost productivity plummeted by about $62 billion when children were active three times a week and by more than $120 billion every year when all of the virtual children played and moved for at least an hour each day.

From: https://www.nytimes.com May 3, 2017

Fenêtres sur coeur

Notre existence ressemble à une nuit semée d’étoiles. Il nous faut, comme dit le poète, tenter “d’apprendre à vivre”, trouver la voie qui est la nôtre, marcher vers l’aube de celui ou de celle que nous avons à être, devenir, pas à pas, ce que nous sommes.

Le sentier est long, souvent escarpé, il se dérobe même parfois. Comment savoir ce que la vie attend de nous? Comment ne pas rater les rendez-vous essentiels de notre existence, faire les bons choix aux bons moments, oser les bifurcations salutaires, risquer l’aventure des chemins de traverse, dire oui ou non quand il le faut? Comment vivre pleinement, intensément notre “métier” d’homme ou de femme? Comment rester sur le pont de notre existence malgré le gros temps? Comment tenir le cap?

Dans le lent et obscur exode qui nous mène peu à peu vers la Terre promise de notre unification intérieure, nous avons besoin de phares. Et la vie nous fait, parfois, le cadeau de mettre sur notre route d’étincelants visages qui, comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le coeur des jours, viennent nous révéler la voie. Jamais ces visages-là ne nous diront ce que nous devons faire de notre vie mais leur propre existence est pour nous un appel, comme une icône où attend de se révéler notre propre résurrection. Souvent ces hommes et ces femmes ont connu les brûlures de l’existence qui, inévitablement, riment un jour ou l’autre avec souffrance...

Ils sont passés par le creuset des douleurs, les heures de tombeaux où l’on n’est plus personne... La vie, peu à peu – ou trop à trop – leur a appris la vie. Ils savent un peu mieux – un peu moins mal? – comment marcher, oser le pas suivant... Ces hommes et ces femmes sont des veilleurs et des résistants, ils guettent la lumière et savent aussi se lever pour dire non. Il nous est parfois donné de rencontrer des êtres dont la lumière fait reculer un peu notre nuit. Leur parole ressuscite en nous la Parole et leur amour nous donne, à nous aussi, l’irrépressible désir d’aimer l’amour. Ils sont pour nous prophètes.

Et nous pouvons, à notre tour, modestement, pauvrement, faiblement, l’être un peu pour les autres. Transmettre quelques reflets de la lumière reçue. Chaque homme, chaque femme peut, sur cette terre, être, pour celles ou ceux que la vie lui donne de rencontrer, comme une fenêtre qui s’ouvre sur la résurrection, parce que, oui, c’est très grand un être humain!

Extrait de l’éditorial du magazine Panorama, nº 376.

Fenêtres sur coeur

Notre existence ressemble à une nuit semée d’étoiles. Il nous faut, comme dit le poète, tenter “d’apprendre à vivre”, trouver la voie qui est la nôtre, marcher vers l’aube de celui ou de celle que nous avons à être, devenir, pas à pas, ce que nous sommes.

Le sentier est long, souvent escarpé, il se dérobe même parfois. Comment savoir ce que la vie attend de nous? Comment ne pas rater les rendez-vous essentiels de notre existence, faire les bons choix aux bons moments, oser les bifurcations salutaires, risquer l’aventure des chemins de traverse, dire oui ou non quand il le faut? Comment vivre pleinement, intensément notre “métier” d’homme ou de femme? Comment rester sur le pont de notre existence malgré le gros temps? Comment tenir le cap?

Dans le lent et obscur exode qui nous mène peu à peu vers la Terre promise de notre unification intérieure, nous avons besoin de phares. Et la vie nous fait, parfois, le cadeau de mettre sur notre route d’étincelants visages qui, comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le coeur des jours, viennent nous révéler la voie. Jamais ces visages-là ne nous diront ce que nous devons faire de notre vie mais leur propre existence est pour nous un appel, comme une icône où attend de se révéler notre propre résurrection. Souvent ces hommes et ces femmes ont connu les brûlures de l’existence qui, inévitablement, riment un jour ou l’autre avec souffrance...

Ils sont passés par le creuset des douleurs, les heures de tombeaux où l’on n’est plus personne... La vie, peu à peu – ou trop à trop – leur a appris la vie. Ils savent un peu mieux – un peu moins mal? – comment marcher, oser le pas suivant... Ces hommes et ces femmes sont des veilleurs et des résistants, ils guettent la lumière et savent aussi se lever pour dire non. Il nous est parfois donné de rencontrer des êtres dont la lumière fait reculer un peu notre nuit. Leur parole ressuscite en nous la Parole et leur amour nous donne, à nous aussi, l’irrépressible désir d’aimer l’amour. Ils sont pour nous prophètes.

Et nous pouvons, à notre tour, modestement, pauvrement, faiblement, l’être un peu pour les autres. Transmettre quelques reflets de la lumière reçue. Chaque homme, chaque femme peut, sur cette terre, être, pour celles ou ceux que la vie lui donne de rencontrer, comme une fenêtre qui s’ouvre sur la résurrection, parce que, oui, c’est très grand un être humain!

Extrait de l’éditorial du magazine Panorama, nº 376.

Fenêtres sur coeur

Notre existence ressemble à une nuit semée d’étoiles. Il nous faut, comme dit le poète, tenter “d’apprendre à vivre”, trouver la voie qui est la nôtre, marcher vers l’aube de celui ou de celle que nous avons à être, devenir, pas à pas, ce que nous sommes.

Le sentier est long, souvent escarpé, il se dérobe même parfois. Comment savoir ce que la vie attend de nous? Comment ne pas rater les rendez-vous essentiels de notre existence, faire les bons choix aux bons moments, oser les bifurcations salutaires, risquer l’aventure des chemins de traverse, dire oui ou non quand il le faut? Comment vivre pleinement, intensément notre “métier” d’homme ou de femme? Comment rester sur le pont de notre existence malgré le gros temps? Comment tenir le cap?

Dans le lent et obscur exode qui nous mène peu à peu vers la Terre promise de notre unification intérieure, nous avons besoin de phares. Et la vie nous fait, parfois, le cadeau de mettre sur notre route d’étincelants visages qui, comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le coeur des jours, viennent nous révéler la voie. Jamais ces visages-là ne nous diront ce que nous devons faire de notre vie mais leur propre existence est pour nous un appel, comme une icône où attend de se révéler notre propre résurrection. Souvent ces hommes et ces femmes ont connu les brûlures de l’existence qui, inévitablement, riment un jour ou l’autre avec souffrance...

Ils sont passés par le creuset des douleurs, les heures de tombeaux où l’on n’est plus personne... La vie, peu à peu – ou trop à trop – leur a appris la vie. Ils savent un peu mieux – un peu moins mal? – comment marcher, oser le pas suivant... Ces hommes et ces femmes sont des veilleurs et des résistants, ils guettent la lumière et savent aussi se lever pour dire non. Il nous est parfois donné de rencontrer des êtres dont la lumière fait reculer un peu notre nuit. Leur parole ressuscite en nous la Parole et leur amour nous donne, à nous aussi, l’irrépressible désir d’aimer l’amour. Ils sont pour nous prophètes.

Et nous pouvons, à notre tour, modestement, pauvrement, faiblement, l’être un peu pour les autres. Transmettre quelques reflets de la lumière reçue. Chaque homme, chaque femme peut, sur cette terre, être, pour celles ou ceux que la vie lui donne de rencontrer, comme une fenêtre qui s’ouvre sur la résurrection, parce que, oui, c’est très grand un être humain!

Extrait de l’éditorial du magazine Panorama, nº 376.

Fenêtres sur coeur

Notre existence ressemble à une nuit semée d’étoiles. Il nous faut, comme dit le poète, tenter “d’apprendre à vivre”, trouver la voie qui est la nôtre, marcher vers l’aube de celui ou de celle que nous avons à être, devenir, pas à pas, ce que nous sommes.

Le sentier est long, souvent escarpé, il se dérobe même parfois. Comment savoir ce que la vie attend de nous? Comment ne pas rater les rendez-vous essentiels de notre existence, faire les bons choix aux bons moments, oser les bifurcations salutaires, risquer l’aventure des chemins de traverse, dire oui ou non quand il le faut? Comment vivre pleinement, intensément notre “métier” d’homme ou de femme? Comment rester sur le pont de notre existence malgré le gros temps? Comment tenir le cap?

Dans le lent et obscur exode qui nous mène peu à peu vers la Terre promise de notre unification intérieure, nous avons besoin de phares. Et la vie nous fait, parfois, le cadeau de mettre sur notre route d’étincelants visages qui, comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le coeur des jours, viennent nous révéler la voie. Jamais ces visages-là ne nous diront ce que nous devons faire de notre vie mais leur propre existence est pour nous un appel, comme une icône où attend de se révéler notre propre résurrection. Souvent ces hommes et ces femmes ont connu les brûlures de l’existence qui, inévitablement, riment un jour ou l’autre avec souffrance...

Ils sont passés par le creuset des douleurs, les heures de tombeaux où l’on n’est plus personne... La vie, peu à peu – ou trop à trop – leur a appris la vie. Ils savent un peu mieux – un peu moins mal? – comment marcher, oser le pas suivant... Ces hommes et ces femmes sont des veilleurs et des résistants, ils guettent la lumière et savent aussi se lever pour dire non. Il nous est parfois donné de rencontrer des êtres dont la lumière fait reculer un peu notre nuit. Leur parole ressuscite en nous la Parole et leur amour nous donne, à nous aussi, l’irrépressible désir d’aimer l’amour. Ils sont pour nous prophètes.

Et nous pouvons, à notre tour, modestement, pauvrement, faiblement, l’être un peu pour les autres. Transmettre quelques reflets de la lumière reçue. Chaque homme, chaque femme peut, sur cette terre, être, pour celles ou ceux que la vie lui donne de rencontrer, comme une fenêtre qui s’ouvre sur la résurrection, parce que, oui, c’est très grand un être humain!

Extrait de l’éditorial du magazine Panorama, nº 376.

Fenêtres sur coeur

Notre existence ressemble à une nuit semée d’étoiles. Il nous faut, comme dit le poète, tenter “d’apprendre à vivre”, trouver la voie qui est la nôtre, marcher vers l’aube de celui ou de celle que nous avons à être, devenir, pas à pas, ce que nous sommes.

Le sentier est long, souvent escarpé, il se dérobe même parfois. Comment savoir ce que la vie attend de nous? Comment ne pas rater les rendez-vous essentiels de notre existence, faire les bons choix aux bons moments, oser les bifurcations salutaires, risquer l’aventure des chemins de traverse, dire oui ou non quand il le faut? Comment vivre pleinement, intensément notre “métier” d’homme ou de femme? Comment rester sur le pont de notre existence malgré le gros temps? Comment tenir le cap?

Dans le lent et obscur exode qui nous mène peu à peu vers la Terre promise de notre unification intérieure, nous avons besoin de phares. Et la vie nous fait, parfois, le cadeau de mettre sur notre route d’étincelants visages qui, comme des fenêtres ouvertes sur le coeur des jours, viennent nous révéler la voie. Jamais ces visages-là ne nous diront ce que nous devons faire de notre vie mais leur propre existence est pour nous un appel, comme une icône où attend de se révéler notre propre résurrection. Souvent ces hommes et ces femmes ont connu les brûlures de l’existence qui, inévitablement, riment un jour ou l’autre avec souffrance...

Ils sont passés par le creuset des douleurs, les heures de tombeaux où l’on n’est plus personne... La vie, peu à peu – ou trop à trop – leur a appris la vie. Ils savent un peu mieux – un peu moins mal? – comment marcher, oser le pas suivant... Ces hommes et ces femmes sont des veilleurs et des résistants, ils guettent la lumière et savent aussi se lever pour dire non. Il nous est parfois donné de rencontrer des êtres dont la lumière fait reculer un peu notre nuit. Leur parole ressuscite en nous la Parole et leur amour nous donne, à nous aussi, l’irrépressible désir d’aimer l’amour. Ils sont pour nous prophètes.

Et nous pouvons, à notre tour, modestement, pauvrement, faiblement, l’être un peu pour les autres. Transmettre quelques reflets de la lumière reçue. Chaque homme, chaque femme peut, sur cette terre, être, pour celles ou ceux que la vie lui donne de rencontrer, comme une fenêtre qui s’ouvre sur la résurrection, parce que, oui, c’est très grand un être humain!

Extrait de l’éditorial du magazine Panorama, nº 376.