Tea time talks

Afternoon tea talks

Alline M. M. Serpa

It's been a while since I climbed that slope for the first time. It was Mother's Day, May 1992, and I was accompanying my parents for what seemed to be a different walk on a Sunday. Several taxis followed the road between Rio and Petrópolis and, in the beautiful green and flowery place, everyone parked side by side and the families went out to greet each other.

At the age of 13, I found myself surrounded by adults and old people, all very cheerful and active, talking, working and sharing in general meetings. Always very attentive, I stayed with ears and eyes open for what was happening. Against my nature, I was quiet and just watching everything.

The meeting of taxi drivers at Sitio São Luiz was the moment we got in touch with the idea of a transformation of the world that starts with the transformation of oneself first. A revolutionary idea for me at that time, when I was just beginning to understand the challenges of society and what was expected of each one of us. The high point in the following meetings was to perceive a powerful sense of humility in the speeches of women and men who shared not their pride or personal achievements - they shared their difficulties, some very painful and still in the course of their processes.

The scene itself was already captivating and would provoke some thinking. And this has only possibly deepened with time. To go out from a collective, broad platform, where many talked about personal and professional, to the intimacy of private life issues: a process that could only be developed with time, availability, affection and courage. Looking back, I realize that my involvement with the idea of personal transformation would only have been successful because of the affection and patience of friends like Evelyn and Luis Puig, who were never willing to give me lessons, but only to welcome us for afternoon tea talks.

Conversation has a power that we do not fully understand. When intended, we rehearse on how to approach difficult topics, how to deal with delicate matters. We organise the moment and the place, we prepare ourselves for possible paths that the conversation can take us. But few of us are open to the unexpected.

The conversations around the wooden round table were always cheerful. Sometimes they had a specific purpose: to deepen an important topic started some other day, to comment on previous facts, concerns or funny events, etc. Sometimes it was just the opportunity to share something personal, intimate, eventually difficult. Afternoons with the Puigs became evenings. With my mother, we walked through the streets of the neighbourhood, as we lived near them, talking about the topics at the tea table. And that was exactly it: there was a lot of strength always in the light, humorous and yet important conversations, leaving us to think for a few days. Nevertheless, Evelyn and Luis Puig always phoned us to find out how we were, and give us some more news.

Luis Puig was especially close to me. He knew my potential and fed them, he loved the possibility of working together, thinking of ways and means to broaden the outreach of this movement without ever forgetting the fundamental element: the heart-to-heart contact. He also knew my defects, he did not point them out, but he challenged me in questions that would lead me to face them. Still, he understood my secrets, my questions, and he was always ready for the moments that I wanted to open up. Some were the most important conversations I had in my life because they were not only conversations about me and my life, but their own sharing of similar delicate and not always overcome issues.

This happened at the end of my adolescence and the beginning of my adult life. It built a sense of conscience in me that I will never forget, but now it accompanies me and it’s consolidating in the current challenges, 30 years later. And it makes me think that it is in sincere friendship - made possible only by the union of chance and will - that the essential spirit of an entire movement is built. It is certain that it will not always be possible to make deep friendships in order to form a great community, such as Moral Rearmament - Initiatives of Change, but perhaps it is made up of threads woven together sometimes by deep friendships, sometimes by affection and respect, sometimes by at least a common commitment to a greater idea that we want to keep alive.

I believe that, at this point, we can already understand that an idea only has strength when two people understand it. Every structure is material that turns to dust, and so we urgently need to reconsider the position of what is essential: the intimate and generous in each of us in order to remain humble and attentive.