Do justice

Doing justice, says a Jewish commentary on a psalm, is much more than making peace. Doing justice is a continuous discernment between good and evil, which is not at all simple, because it's about understanding in advance which good actually leads to evil and which evil ultimately produces good. And in this discernment to do justice it is inevitable to step on someone's toes, to be accused of fussiness or harshness. Apparently, the opposite of peace. Doing justice is an incessant work between harmony and discord which, however, can keep peace in the balance.

But what does discern mean? From sorting: sift, sift. It means distinguishing, not confusing. Normally our inner life is a chaos, a blend of conflicting feelings, which set in motion impulses that dictate our behaviors. We don't know where these impulses take us, because we don't even stop to evaluate the feelings that dictated them to us. We believe we act by our own will; instead we are moved and agitated by what we feel and we don't know what it is.

The problem is all here: what kind of feelings do I have? I can understand this by going down into the cellar of the soul: a place where I have stuffed a lot of stuff in bulk that disturbs me in external life. They are the negative aspects of me, which assail me before every decision. I attribute them to character, to the conditioning of education and family. I don't know what to do, I give up and say: "That's how I am." But someone who says that doesn't walk anymore. He gives up on becoming a person. That is, to be free.

The first act of the free person instead is: «Show me what's in the cellar that I can throw away. Let me discern what doesn't serve me, or rather, what hurts me." We all feel that there are things about us that are wrong. Instead of saying "I'm like this", I keep my eyes open like an owl that can see in the darkness of the cellar. I don't repress the negative thought that comes to me: I can repress myself 99 times, but on the hundredth time anyone who passes by me pays for everyone. And I don't even remove it: what is removed increases in strength and next time I'll screw it. I do a third thing: I become aware of the negative feeling every time it passes through me. I look him in the face, I give him his name without censoring myself (shame is awareness!) and I dissociate myself: I recognize you, feeling, your name is (for example) envy and I tell you that I don't want you. This exercise, which is called a particular exam, I do once or twice a day. One feeling at a time, starting with the one that disturbs the most. What happen? Exam after exam, that damned feeling collapses. It's not that I don't feel it anymore. It no longer has the same hold on me. And then something else happens: the negative feeling becomes the place where I no longer hide like Adam did. No: I put myself before God, with my illness. Here the place of my block becomes the place of contrition and humility. Of confidence with God. Of the encounter with the tenderness of him who forgives and frees me from the paralysis of evil.


Flaminia Morandi
NP January 2024