In his village, on one of the hills of Mount Lebanon where he spent most of his summer time, the sound of cicadas is omnipresent. They can be found on every pine tree of the forest that surrounds his grandparents house. For people who grew up in the city, that sound can be unbearable. For him, it’s the soothing sound that, whenever he laid down on the porch swing, conspired with the rocking motion to take him far away into the land of nod.

Cicadas of Mount Lebanon spend several winters underground in the form of larvae. Come summer time, those who are ready come out to the surface, shed their larvae skin to free their wings, and take off for a summer where their voice fills the atmosphere.

Like a cicada, the young boy feels that his time has come to shed his old skin and reveal his new wings. 

His old belief system had shattered and it is no longer suitable for the new journey that is about to begin. Around him, no one seemed to have stumbled on the same revelations that shook his world. No one except one classmate.

There was almost nothing in common between him and Patrick. Patrick is an extrovert, has an unusual hair style and is an assumed intellectual rebel. His favorite pastime is to challenge the teachers with questions that put them at the edge of where they are willing to adventure. His favorite “victim” was the catechism teacher.

Before summer 1998, the young boy would feel a deep unease whenever Patrick unleashed one of his brazen tirades on the Brother who was burning through every ounce of faith he had to cling to his certainties with quiet grace. After 1998, Patrick’s glimmers of wisdom began to glow with truth.

One day, during the mid-term catechism exam, Patrick raised a challenge: complete the exam as fast as possible. About a minute in, the young boy had already finished skimming through the text. He glanced at Patrick who got up from his seat ready to submit his copy. He already had a good guess what Patrick’s answers were, and 30 seconds later, he was ready to submit his.

Once outside, the two classmates were laughing victoriously as they realize they submitted the exact same answers:

• Q: What is this text about? A: It’s about the good shepherd and the good shepherd takes good care of his sheep¹.
• Q: What role did Jesus play among his disciples? A: Jesus was the good shepherd and the good shepherd takes good care of his sheep
• Q: What is the role of [blank] A: [blank] is the good shepherd, and the good shepherd…
• …

While they were waiting for the rest of the class to finish, the boy was wondering: how come Patrick already knew?

Patrick speaks with ease, radiating confidence. He was not a cicada, he was born with wings. The quiet boy, who until now looked at Patrick with an envious eye as one gazes at an idol, now finds himself standing on the same pedestal alongside his peer.

If Patrick did it, he can as well. And if the new truth has become obvious to him, now that he has risen above the fog, it shouldn’t be so hard to speak it out loud.

Priesthood aspirations are long gone by now, replaced by an aspiration for Science. And Sainthood has acquired a new meaning. Kindness, truthfulness and the lust for knowledge are not new values to the young boy; they are what the Lassalian Brothers taught him year after year. What changed is their source. They no longer draw their essence from doctrine, but from what is shared across cultures, ethnicities, and religions: the human being underneath. 

To tell or not to tell  — that was the question.

A question that did not take long to be answered. Silence became a lie. Pretending to make the sign of the cross during mass grew increasingly unbearable. And the feeling of carrying a truth that begged to be shared came to overweigh the fear of being ridiculed.

Summer break returned, and the cicadas are once again everywhere. 

On a Friday morning, while watching a movie with his younger brother, the moment felt right.

Every first flight requires a leap of faith. The wings have never been tested, and the view is vertiginous. Reason urges the jump; instinct tries to hold every muscle in place.

Eventually, the words escaped, followed by a moment of silence, as he stood there, watching the astonishment on his brother’s face.

---

1. It was a common practice in catechism classes to paraphrase passages from the bible instead of quoting verbatim, presenting the youngsters with an easier version to grasp, often with a little polishing along the way. The original catch phrase from John 10:1-18 reads: ¹¹I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. ↩︎