Exceptional Faith, Burning Conversion
(Ex 3:2-4)
Conversion in the biblical sense is not turning back, but entering within oneself so as not to alienate oneself, and rediscovering one's root in order to know how to intervene, releasing the blaze of one's essential Relationship.
Conversion does not have to do with the disinterested tacticism of those who close themselves off from the world, avoiding getting involved until events have a negative impact on their own interests.
But how to take the measure of reality, how to understand it? How to understand oneself? And from where to draw guidance, wisdom and strength to propose wise solutions and effective action?
Moses is an outsider because he is hasty. His impulsive actions forced him to flee into the desert. There he makes more messes, again because of his hot temper. So he decides to calm down and settle down.
But the solution is not to meddle on behalf of others, forcibly choosing a quiet life. That fire of his that burns in his chest and mind is not extinguished; even dormant, he always carries it with him.
Only God understands that it is precisely his dark side and his irascible charge - like no other energy - that can make him the protagonist of an absurd design, in favour of the people, that will make him tread impervious situations and territories.
A risky task, which will force him to bring out his grit, drives, conviction and every resource, even those that are not so virtuous. A mission uniquely his, impossible for other, more balanced and calm souls.
How to explain the passion for the freedom of the humiliated? We find it within us, like a flame that burns and gives no respite. It rises spontaneously, despite prudent attempts to stifle it.
For his crazy redemptive designs, God needs someone exactly like us, just as we are. With our immense unexpressed resources, concealed even behind our blood-spots.
Qualities that arise spontaneously and have their own path to conversion, but that sooner or later have to come out as they are. They express ourselves deeply, and the call of the Father.
Various conditioning can create misperceptions of our personal uniqueness; likewise, of its development and destination.
The great risk is to spend our lives dissipating our character identity in search of induced illusions and conditioned reflections: of what we are not and do not even want.
Not only distractions, but also too much reasoning can lead us astray from the home that is really ours.
Continuing to insist on what damages the development of the soul and its full flowering, makes it indecisive or cunning and stubborn - especially if suggestible and fearful, or even receptive and helpless.
Our founding Eros comes into play when it realises that reality or its (defined) cultural paradigm can lead us astray.
The Vocation then manifests itself to the personal vision in a kind of energetic, reserved and unique Image, which makes us think in dreams, acts as a guide and drags us no one knows why or where.
The women and men who experience this inner fire that is not extinguished are not introduced into a world that only wants to endure, everything already chiselled and that knows its destination.
The Father's Flame does not express itself through artifices to be recited: it wants to recover and bring home all its resources, our essence and its jewels (to be exalted instead of hidden).
Jewels all to be extracted from the world of careless and locked-up certainties. Jewels - not infrequently concealed behind sides and propensities that (to the eye worn out by clichés) appear obscure.
Often it is precisely our side that is unknown to the schemes that is the spark that urges and acts as therapy to the sick soul, takes it by the hand and with due energy becomes a guide to relevant self-discovery - and great service to others.
The burning bush in the flesh - divine revelation - is kindled so that we realise the Dream of our own dreams. Not so that the soul becomes more and more equal and bound, or fundamentalist.
And only our Torch-Core-which-doesn't-consume-itself continuously in action, can prevent those who are born revolutionaries of the spirit, from then (but also quickly) surviving as armchair.
It happens in the banality of ideologies as in the conformism of religions, but it cannot happen in the sphere of the life of Faith.
Because the dance is not conducted by controlling extraneousness: aims, intentions, ideas, projects or codes... but by passionate and pulsive powers, which every day question us about the tide coming in.
Providence acts as director, wooing and mysteriously directing unrepeatable strategies, which plough through history attracting and dragging, unblocking mechanisms and empowering energies - even causing us to change, reshape or accentuate characters.We must surrender to them, not out of need, duty or calculation, nor just to understand something more, but to enjoy their spiritual Light and rays of Love, both near and far, creative of the inner and genius forces around us.
The Flame returns to spur us on to rekindle the personal balm of instinctiveness, the possibilities of fulfilment of our nature.
The absurd desire that explodes within wants to expand the possibilities of sap, both of the tree and of the roots themselves, to make us become well-rounded persons.
Thus we will no longer try to resemble our models, because the principle of such transmutation bursting out of the placid and conventional scenario has re-proposed the reason why we are in the world. [Our life-saving task... or the barrenness of models... Resetting and surprising our nostalgic and dead side... or the dark evil of living - and exhausting myself for a wisdom that has no more than Wisdom).
Once the radiance and beauty of the Torch is extinguished, its energetic virtue on our flesh fades, dampening the soul's enthusiasm - and extinguishing action (as in a position of starvation).
The passionate state is the force of practical thought and intellect. It makes our identity soar and has significant repercussions on others; it is the custodian of independence. And it integrates us, overcoming the sense of imperfection (or existential emptiness).
The intelligent Primordial Energy recognises our essence and brings the soul from external events back to the Core: from vicissitudes, things and wounds, to our innermost and richest being.
It knows that from the stimulus of such a source centre - and character bond of origin - will spring forth astounding events, unknown propensities, magic of unforeseen happenings. A new Creation.
From this House of new life and different hymns, a whole world of relationships will emanate... new commitments, brilliant insights and practical aptitudes, weaving the magic of the bride-matched soul.
It is this Source that takes over again, when it realises that we are not fulfilled, or that we feel betrayed by it - that is to say, to overcome fears, a sense of desolation, and bitter abandonments. Like a power that calls us back to ourselves, to our unexpressed talents, to the energy of the gaze that grasps the meaning of a story, and the genius of our territory or time. And it crosses them, making us lean out.
It becomes the daily compass of life and transformation. But it badly bears the interference of external judgements, which do not dwell deep inside but contribute to the atmosphere that circulates around it.
Like a force that happens, an energy that cannot be directed or explained by a universe of ready-made meanings, planned emotions and symbols, or manipulated into submission.
Ready to rise again as, when and why we do not expect, only to regenerate and make exponential our unusual, autonomous seed. As it is: ascetic effort would yield poor results.
The Hidden Source expresses itself in events imbued with the future, soaked in an atmosphere of Presence, of a whole side of our personality and not just some offshoot of its social sense (a nomenclature).
Roots manifest themselves in actions that contain as yet unexpressed, but strongly potential and affectively vital knowledge. They solve problems by acting in their own way.
Precisely what we do not yet know about ourselves - attitudes, desires - can be the secret, the spring of our blossoming. A discovery that springs up innately, not a taught and recognised path.
The true measure is deeper. One gets lost in trivialities, if one does not discover the personal seed - and assumes one already knows the direction: what to love, how to say and do according to instructions.
On the contrary, the world of acquired knowledge is often the enemy of the hidden process, which keeps wanting to carry out its theme and repudiating what it does not want to absorb, because it would counteract it.
And that is the whole game: not to fade, but to sense attitudes and let them be, even contradictory. And dance without placing them, identifying them, lining them up according to custom or ideal - thus intoxicating them.
The peculiar characteristic has the flavour of the Eternal. It incessantly gives birth to a renewed gaze, which is formed spontaneously, along the way. Preparing for the New, which does not bear expectations.
Hence, the unforeseen spark of the heart (which never matches) cannot be humiliated, threatened, shattered, removed or alienated: it is our consistent Inclination, which releases a clear radiance of Oneness.
