The jubilee doors are beginning to close here in Rome, and with them comes the time for balance. Even if the Holy Year is not yet over, we already feel this silence before the end, when we look at each other without excuses. As a volunteer, I saw the invisible plot … that supports these meetings: anonymous working hours to make everything seem simple. And when this is the case, we are certain that the best is not born only from us.
Among the jubilees, there is one unforgettable: that of the prisoners. Raw, human, without embellishments. There were incidents, thefts, falls… and a lot of outstretched hands. But the main thing happened inside. In them, and also in me. I understood something embarrassing: it is enough to relax inner vigilance so that the serious error ceases to be distant and approaches like a shadow. One volunteer summed up the situation with disarming calm: “Good people make bad decisions.” No one can swear that he is far from the abyss. Not out of pessimism, but out of realism. Perhaps our greatness lies in recognizing how much we have been forgiven. The detainees are not “the others”. We could be anyone. We are both sinners and potential saints. And perhaps that is why it is convenient to live more attentive, more grateful, less satisfied.
Almudena Lake. Rome
mathematical error
He left the observatory towards Westminster with a determined step. Something was wrong. London was very busy, but George Biddell Airy walked through the city as if there was nothing but background noise. On site, architects and workers celebrated the grandeur of the clock: it was to be heard throughout the city. Airy listened, waited his turn and said, “I’m afraid it’s going to break, because they didn’t follow my advice.”
He wasn’t wrong. The Astronomer Royal – a position he held between 1835 and 1881 – made a mistake in calculating the bell of Big Ben. Thirteen tons of bronze, a hammer too heavy, and a two-foot crack. A failure of mathematics, a failure of advice, a failure of overconfidence. Nothing new: arithmetic and those who interpret it also make mistakes.
Today, Extremadura is experiencing its own structural fissure. The PP-Vox political alliance did not offer, according to María Guardiola, any type of security. He then looks for another calculation: the absolute majority. He didn’t understand. And what I wanted to escape ended up gaining weight. A consequence as predictable as it is Faustian.
In 1859, Airy did not correct his error: he tamed it. He turned the bell so that the hammer hit an untouched area. It wasn’t great, but it was effective. Guaranteed system functionality. Now I just hope that María Guardiola corrects the error, fixes the problem and guarantees some functionality. The problem was never the bell, but hitting where it was already broken.
Alex Tiraplegui. Pamplona (Navarra)
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