No one way

(Jn 1:19-28)

"Behind me" [v.27 Greek text] is the position of the disciple in relation to that taken by the master.

Jesus as a seeker chose the school of John, whose pupil he became, then deviated from it - even snatching away some admirers.

At some point in his journey he realised that our spiritual journey does not rest on easy exclusions: moralistic, one-sided, abstract - established by disinfecting nomenclatures (institutional or expelled).

The Father's heart is beyond divisive and purist expectations, which even the Baptiser considered unquestionable and inculcated in his pupils.

God works only in favour of life: his actions are all positive - humanising, restorative, awareness and integration of personal being - not rejection.

In his school one grows by treasuring oneself, relationships, things as they are and where they are; in an integral way. No one should be stagnant, or in competition with the other.

Non-negotiable principle: God and his children are in the middle, not in front.

No one is called to stand behind and follow: all must express themselves. On a vocational basis, everyone is already perfect!

This is why Jesus will invite his disciples, even those who are a little unhinged, to become fishers of men.

At all times, his intimates are called to breathe, drawing their brethren from whirlpools of death - not to become guides, directors and managers, i.e. 'shepherds'.

No one is destined to be good and dead in some flock, led by the know-it-all. Wealth is not outside us.

The only leader and model is the divine Spirit, who ceaselessly amazes.

Impetuous wind: you do not know where it comes from nor where it goes (Jn 3:8), but it exclusively transmits life - even from forms and events of death.

Being is accentuated and rejoices only when one's resources are discovered, not 'repaired'. And welcomed, valued, brought into play, amplified, exchanged, energised in a relationship of reciprocity.

God is not a sequester, and has multifaceted particular languages; for each of his children, his own unrepeatable path.

The Eternal One dreams for each of us an exceptional, unique, non-homologisable path and missionary fulfilment.

Traditional religions, for example, exorcise negative emotions, imperfection.

They abhor limitation, deny adversity; they are not OK with whatever happens. In fact, they want relationships, evidence, and souls always settled.

Too many forms of devotion preach inner warfare, even overtly.

So too, unfortunately, did John, setting women and men against themselves or their character, and spontaneous movements.

Guises that turn people into outsiders.

Conversely, the Father wants to bring life and blossom; therefore he is not always full of opinions.

The Lord draws wonders that will make a stir, precisely from the dark sides; transformed into sources of new magics.

To the early Christians, the disciples of the Baptist asked for explanations about Christ:

"You who believe Jesus to be the Messiah, do you not remember that it was our teacher who baptised him, joining him to his school? How can the Anointed One make himself a disciple of others, and have to learn something?"

The little children of God, however, had already passed from the pyramidal and apodictic mentality of the religions of the past [where models fall like lightning and instigate tribunals: vv.19-25] to the concrete idea of the Incarnation.

[The true theology of the Incarnation is completed in fieri, and in the meantime should sweep away all mental cages, even in the seemingly scruffy age of global crisis and critical emergency].

Even today, the engagement with history and its new energy are knocking out all clichés, even of belief.

But the anxiety it generates in us is for the birth of a new Life, more able to perceive: attentive and authentic.

Jesus knew everyone's existential penury: needs, ignorance, growth; like every man. And he experienced within himself and understood the natural-supernatural value of exploration.

Rather than having to be 'tweaked', reformed and castrated upstream, the new Rebbe made an even diverse and non-conformist Exodus himself, which enriched him.

He too had to correct his initial path [as a disciple of John (v.27a) along with those who later became the first Apostles] and recast himself: added value, not impurity.

He did everything as we do, without the disease of one-sided doctrinaireism; that is why we truly recognise ourselves in Christ, in his Word, and in his loving story.

And recognise him as the Bridegroom of the soul (v.27b).

It is fully human to proceed by trial and error, adjusting one's aim as one realises - healing one's approach, both to the intuition of the divine, and to the creaturely sense.Thus avoiding becoming neurotic by adaptation, because as one proceeds, each soul treasures the experiences and prepares to offer a personal synthesis.

It is this unitive dignity that engages in Love. We are not called to be strong-armed regardless.

The fake-secure then sow the most bizarre uncertainties, and make the worst trouble, for everyone.

They create environments that look like cemeteries frequented by depersonalised zombies [Pope Francis would say]. And cunning ones who direct.

In his all-too-human Quest, Jesus gradually understood that the Father's own intimate Life is offered as a Gift: a Surprise on our behalf.

Impossible to coin it to the measure of ancient prejudices.

Unlikely - therefore - to set up some kind of manifestation of the Messiah from our preconceptions, or U-shaped ethical conversions, laced with returns, set-ups, events, initiatives.

The Most High continually unsettles us, and by no means traces established opinions, or mannerisms.

Happiness is outside sterile mechanisms that plan the smallest details. It is rather Covenant with the shadow side, which nevertheless belongs to us.

Sacred Covenant that conveys completeness of being: perception-threshold of Joy.

In short, we are immersed in a Mystery of Gratuity and vital amazement that transcends normalised growth, all under conditions.

The Tao Tê Ching (LI) writes: "No one commands the Tao, but it always comes spontaneously". And Master Ho-shang Kung comments: "The Tao not only brings creatures to life, but also makes them grow, nourishes them, completes them, matures them, repairs them, develops them, keeps them whole in life.

The Father brings them to life in the Spirit, without a rigmarole of progressions in stages and steps.

Other people's procedures, which instead of regenerating existence always throw in our faces the suspicion that we are inadequate, bogged down, incapable of perfection, and old.

Cassian and eventually also Thomas Aquinas would perhaps have classified them under the title of 'spiritual vices', as expressions derived from 'fornicatio mentis' [et corporis].

While the Baptist and the whole serious tradition imagined that it was so much to prepare for the coming of the Kingdom, Jesus instead proposed to welcome it: the only possibility of Perfection and fruitful Youth.

We no longer exist as a function of God - as in religions that are always arranging everything - but we live from Him, in astonishment and in an unrepeatable way.

Master Ho-shang Kung again emphasises: 'The Tao makes creatures live, but it does not hold them as its own: what they take is for their benefit'.

This is the end of models for the 'held' - neither natural nor intuitive. Paradigms that have subjected civilisations to gruelling trials: they are not ours.

Even now, many hyperbole, and even 'religious' efforts, are not in favour of vocational paths in the first person.

The conformist and pre-packaged [glamorous or vain] paths appear ethereal, or renunciate, puritanical, voluntarist, athletic; as well as imaginative, but all schematic, and disembodied.

They always mount scaffolding far removed from the reality that comes, and from the genuine things of Heaven.

For those of us who are uncertain, inadequate, incapable of miracles - and who dislike cerebral ideologies or the separatism of all-singing, all-dancing heroes - Beautiful is this stubborn reassurance!

Wealth is not outside us.

To internalise and live the message:

Who is the Subject of your spiritual life? Where does he dwell?