The 'win-or-lose' alternative is false: you have to get out of it

(Mt 5:38-42)

«Other cheek»: climate of inventiveness.

Not opposing the wicked allows one to experience the Beatitudes, the antidote to one-sided relationships; but this is impossible if we do not allow an innate Energy to develop.

The Tao says: "If you want to be given everything, give up everything". In the infinitely repeated reciprocation there is no wisdom that 'reads within'; in the reversal, yes.

[For this reason, e.g. the text of Lk 6,27-38 does not speak of 'merits' (cf. translation CEI 1974) nor of 'gratitude' (translation CEI 2008), but of 'Gratitude' (vv.31.33-34)].

Of course, it is not easy to understand the meaning of the Gift, of the Free: but the Master does not only want us to become more capable of thankfulness and well-behaved.

Jesus in us is not simply concerned with changing the situation and softening it: he wants to replace the whole system of spurious things and artificial relationships - of manner.

Otherwise nothing would be changed, nothing would be radically reversed; far from it: in the goodness of circumstance, the superstructures that alienate us would be strengthened.

The new experience of God is that of a genuine creative Love, which ceaselessly throws up, introduces new powers, and incredibly turns everything upside down.

There is a greater Justice: living in the new position that the tide of life and Providence chisels out for each of us.

It is not effort that will make us stay where the (truly perfect) Vocation wants us to stay, but a slow correspondence - even in the swings.

Outside and within us there is another territory, where the affinity of Expectation meets God's Plan: this after a time of Silence that intensely lives the Today, grasping its depth, intuiting it as the unpredictable root of Tomorrow.

There is a different realm, where condescension meets new drives, cosmic and acutely personal; Profile of the Living.

In this way, here we are without precipitation: after an energy of pause, a virtue that becomes the root and sap of the most exclusive future.

The spiral of returning offence can occupy all our space. This dampens our ability to correspond to the new tinkling of the Call.

It robs us of perception, of the whole listening to the Newness of God that is in the dawning.

Generating confusions all our own, it pales the History of Salvation that is on the contrary creating an unprecedented: it is being cut at the root.

This is why the Lord orders the subversion of the customs of ancient religiosity, of his own impetus; of the divisions involved [acceptable or not, friend or foe, near or far, pure and impure, sacred and profane, etc.].

The divine Kingdom starts from the Seed, not from outward gestures or forms; nor does it use conformist sweeteners that leave roles untouched.

In order to grasp the very rhythm of God (who wisely creates) souls must take the pace of things, which mature in linear terms until they overthrow or multiply - not in a 'printed' way, but in a personal way.

The events themselves regenerate spontaneously, outside and even within us; no need to force it.

The growth and destination also remains thanks to the spring of external mockeries and constraints.

In the Tao Tê Ching we read: 'If you want to obtain something, you must first allow it to be given to others'. The flowering will be unforced.

Then, steadfastness in the tribulation, acceptance and endurance of profiteers, the superficial and the vain becomes the offspring of a new child, of an unthought-of Genesis that is just weaving its first roots with that very marshy soil.

From ingots nothing is born, from the obstinate the usual things are born, from the hasty the exact opposite; from dung new flowers are born, which we did not even plant.

The suspension experienced in Mystery opens our fate of already decreed foolishness to trust in a new, unrepeatable Act of Being.

It opens up the Sense that you do not expect, in a climate of inventiveness that overrides the action-reaction instinct - so that the chain of normality does not take over the prodigy of vocational Identity, of our character and realisation.

Non-violence is thus not a norm of mere exquisiteness of mind, but a superior Arrow, pointing in a direction of non-mechanical Research, which advances from discovery to discovery.

The truly exemplary life is always of another kind, out of the ordinary.

Exactly, letting everyone, even the opportunists [and holiness actors] move on, does not immediately put us in the saddle or in the shop window, but finally neither will it make us pay too much in person.

It creates the right detachment so that when we are ready, the time will come when we will realise that our mortification was a crossroads: it opened up our destiny to a less short-lived, life-expanding hope.

Says the Tao: "New beginnings are often disguised as painful losses [but] what is yielding overcomes what is hard. The slow overtakes the fast'.If the others are not as we dreamed, it is fortunate: the doors slammed in our faces and their prodding bring us into contact with our deepest virtues, and with resources to which we have not yet given space.

Betrayals, abuse, spite, revenge, outrages, mortifications... that would like to make us uneasy and dishearten us... are preparing our development.

The adventure of extreme Faith is indeed for a Beauty that wounds and an abnormal, prominent Happiness. But only he who knows how to wait finds his Way.

The First Testament recognised the principle of justice 'one is worth one' in the right of vengeance.

Thus stemming the volume of retaliation and the overwhelming power of the strong [their possible blind violence as a result of trifles] over the weak within the limits of equality.

But this is not enough not to pervert relationships and allow the Father to propose to us a special realisation-configuration, which imposes 'Suspensions' from the homologising spiral.

Generating confusions all our own, it pales that very story of salvation that is on the contrary creating an unprecedented: it cuts it off at the root.

The whirlpool of returning the offence can occupy all our space and time.

Thus such a vortex dampens the ability to correspond to the new tinkling of the Call.

It takes away the silence, the care, the Listening to the Newness of God that is germinating.

The steadfastness in the tribulation, acceptance and endurance of profiteers, the superficial and vain becomes the Seed of a new son, of an unthought-of Genesis, which is just weaving its first roots in that very marshy soil.

From the 'perfect' and 'brilliant' nothing is born, from the obstinate the usual things are born, from the hasty the exact opposite; from dung new flowers are born, which we did not even plant.

Waiting for God opens our destiny of relentless and already decreed foolishness to trust in a new Sap and Power.

It opens up the Meaning you do not expect, in a climate of inventiveness that overrides the action-reaction instinct, so that the chain of normality does not take over the mystery of our Identity-character and Destination.

Non-violence is not a norm, but a superior Arrow, pointing a direction of Search, which advances from discovery to discovery.

Truly exemplary life is always of a different kind, out of the ordinary.

Letting everyone get ahead does not put us in the saddle or in the shop window, but neither will it make us pay too much in person and sense.

It creates the right detachment so that when we are ready, the time will come when we will realise that our humiliation was a dividing line, a critical point.

It has unexpectedly opened up destiny to a less short-lived, life-expanding hope.

A new, unrepeatable Act of Being will take place.

If the others are not as we dreamed, it is fortunate: the doors slammed in our faces and their sting are preparing us for other joys.

The adventure of extreme Faith is for a Beauty that wounds - sharpening the perception, shifting the gaze, dilating the heart - and for an abnormal, prominent Joy.

The 'win-or-lose' alternative is false: we must come out of it.