"If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire".

St Catherine of Sienna, 29th April 2020

I find the life of St Catherine deeply impressive yet somehow uninviting.

She was a passionate, feisty, focussed and remarkable in her spiritual exercises and writings. One of her sayings: "Proclaim the truth and do not be silent through fear" is eminently apposite for politicians and leaders today. She told people to speak out against injustice, conflict and division. She herself had the ability to be silent in prayer where she found the strength to proclaim publicly against the scandals and challenges of the day. She noted, "if you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire".

Indeed, I would argue that it is love which sets the world aflame so we must be the lovers, the lovers of nature, of creation, of people, of life.

A week ago, I came across this quotation from Skin Horse in Margery Williams' book The Velveteen Rabbit: "Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you have become real."

I utterly endorse that sentiment and do not reserve it to humans alone but to all things - even my own beloved one-eyed teddy bear who lived to 55.

The question of reality hit me some weeks ago when I read the most moving story of a young man in Sweden who died, I think, in 2014.

I will get some of the facts wrong but the story as I tell it is accurate, utterly true and real to its core. He was born with some rare disease which slowly but surely attacked his muscles and ligaments. By the age of 7, he was in a wheel chair and became more and more dependent on others. The one activity he was able to undertake for himself was the computer. He could not speak. 

His parents were determined that he should lead a 'normal' life, or as normal as possible. Thus, he had a routine and timetable which included specific bedtimes.

They regretted especially his lack of social contact, of friends. To cut the story short he became more and more absorbed in his computer. In his late teens and early twenties he stayed up late and seemed obsessed by his computer, which concerned his parents. He had his own blog and seemed ever to play games. 

He died aged 27 and his father put a message to  that fact on his son's blog.

To his amazement literally thousands of people responded. His son had taken on the role of a particular avatar and as that person, it came to light, had been able to walk, run, talk, have friends, do good, give advice, enjoy community: in fact he was free to be his real self.

The many who had been part of that game did not realise that he was handicapped and house bound, in a wheel chair and they wrote in their thousands of his liveliness, generosity, help and even wisdom.

In fact they clubbed financially together across the world from Japan, to South America, the USA, to Europe so that half a dozen of them could fly to Sweden to attend his funeral and to represent them all. The others all lit a candle at the time of his funeral to remember him. 

When I read that story - I cried. Was the young man, (forgive me for not remembering his name, he had one, was not a statistic but a human person) himself as the wheel chaired handicapped person or as the avatar? Or were they both part of the real man? 

All I do is echo Skin Horse "when a child...really loves you, then you become real."

Also St Catherine "if you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire".

That young man had a life which set many on fire.

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