The sun burned in my hands
which is a lot to say;
the sun burned in my hands
and I distributed it,
which is saying a lot.
Indeed, it is a lot to be able to say about a human being who has achieved that double wonder: that the sun burned in his hands and that he has known how to distribute it. I don’t know which of the two feats is more prodigious.
Naturally, when we talk about the sun burning in someone’s hands, what we are saying is that their life is full, radiant, that their years have been luminous like torches, that they had a great illusion that gave meaning to their hours, that they were alive, in short. A great feat, as I say. Because, unfortunately, most of the humans pass through the earth extinguished, having nothing to give or say, with their souls like lamps without light. Only the saints, the geniuses, the great lovers who have the sun in their hands are people who, when they pass by us, leave a trace in our memory, in our lives. Because they have light, because their souls are full and awake.
And why do they have light and most don’t? Only the one who has been collecting it, cultivating it, has light. Light, beauty, are in the world, but you have to go knowing how to collect it. And you have to start by having your hands open and not like the selfish, closed, grasped hands. Everyone who has the light in his hands has it by his merit and effort. And, of course, it is not conquered in a single day: pieces of light accumulate pieces of love. The soul only shines after many years of collecting effort. But what a miracle to die with your soul on fire! “which is saying a lot “, as the poet Nicolás Guillén sings.
Knowing how to distribute that light is another miracle. Light is something that, by its very nature, is to share and distribute. It is not given to men to put it under the bushel, but to put it on the candlestick that it illuminates everyone in the house and in the world. Nobody is given a soul for himself. Although there are many people who die without having discovered this enormous truth. These are the failed geniuses, twice as sad as those with dull souls. Because is there anything more absurd than having a full life and believing that you have to suck it privately like ice cream? Those who are poor (poor in soul) and selfish, are poorer than bad. The rich (rich in soul) and selfish, those are the same sterility.
This must be repeated until it is understood: brotherhood, love, dedication, are not things added to make a man holy or perfect. They are the substance of man. Man as a solitary individual is not a man at all. Man is man when he lives in community and for the community. When he serves someone. When he loves someone. That is when he is born as a human being.
Goethe explained it with a definitive phrase: “Only among all men does the human come to be lived.” In other words, none of us alone exhausts the human condition. together and open. The light of the soul is only light when it is distributed, shared.
Tillich, the theologian, also explained it very well: “In the world we only exist by virtue of the community of men. And we can only discover our soul through the mirror of those who observe us. There is no depth in life without the depth of the common good”.
Geniuses are geniuses not because of what they produce, but because of what they project, because of what they distribute. A genius is not a man who has a very great soul, but a man whose soul we can feed on. In the saints the thing is even clearer: they are saints because they did not reserve themselves, but gave themselves to all those around them.
Therefore, how good if, as the poet says, they could say about us that we had the sun in our hands and that we dedicated ourselves to dividing it into slices.
Then we would have been truly alive.
Translated and adapted from Razones para vivir (José Luis Martín Descalzo, 1991).
