The life, the truth, the way.

I am the way and the truth and the life.

(John 14:6)

The life. I’m surrounded by the astonishing nature of California. Majestic trees embrace me, as I walk through the grass full of little flowers. I can feel the life buzzing everywhere, growing from the earth, reaching towards the sky, sucking the light in, breathing out joy—the joy of being alive. The creation is still ongoing, it is continuously ongoing. The creation happens through a Word: ‘let this be’, and it comes—and it is good. The creation happens through a Word of love for what is good and beautiful. Wherever I see life, I see this creating Word. Whatever is alive, is alive through this Word of love—and bears witness of it.

The truth. I’m in a little clearing in the woods. As I walk in, the density of the branches opens up and I can see the sky again, clear and fresh as just born. The truth, before being the adequacy between thought and reality (as Plato taught), is the manifestation of reality as it is, its appearing and becoming intelligible. The truth is like the meaning of a word, when the word is fully understood and through that understanding can reveal what it meant to say. The Word of life says something about the creature: it’s a work of art. But it says also something about the Creator.

The Creator did not want to be identical and remain fully united with his creature. The artist took a step back from his work. Why? This is what the clearing of the truth reveals: if you really love someone, you want to let them free to love you back. You don’t bound them to love you. You give them space, so that if they love, they will love from a place of freedom, which is the only possible source of true love. Freedom calls for a degree of independency and autonomy. If the Creator walked away completely from his creature, then the creature would dissolve in nothingness (because it is the Creator who bestows the being of the creature). Yet, if the Creator did not take a step back from its artwork, did not allow it to walk also on its own legs, then the artwork will never be able to have the freedom and independency needed to genuinely discover the love for its Creator.

This is why the Creator is both Other than his creation, and yet constantly connected with it. This is the delicate equilibrium of love: close enough, but not too close; far enough, but not too far. This is why God in the Scripture is often seen as a Father, someone who is not identical with (or physically bound to) you, yet someone who is never far away from you and took much interest and care in what you do and how you live. God is then both a mystery (if we consider his stepping back), and the closest companion (if we consider his bending over us). These two poles become one in Jesus, who is both at the same time, man and God, Creator and creature. The truth is: the relative independency and freedom of creation is the signature of the love of its Creator for it.

The way. I am also part of this all. I am too a work of art of this same Creator. I am too a beloved son. As I listen to the life and the truth, I find my way back to the source, to my Father. Nothing else is really required, this is the core of everything. In its essence, this is an extremely simple relationship: being loved and love in reply. A proper, complete understanding of this relationship already involves in itself the whole of justice, the full scope of goodness, the brightness of holiness. Everything that is taught in so many words and different ways finds in this simple relationship of sonship its root and deepest ground.

Everything else is just noise—the noise of the ‘ego’ and its pride, with which we misuse our freedom to serve ourselves instead of serving the life and the truth. If I could stay close to this way, I would be in heaven, in the Father’s house. But we’ve fallen many times from there. We pretend to walk other ways, to get to other places, because we pretend to know better what is right, what is true, what is good, what is love. We want to ‘adapt’ the life and the truth to our own ideas and aspirations, make it fit what fits us: I want it a bit more this way, I want to give it a bit more this flavor instead of that. The noise of the ego is endless—and so boring.

Yet, with infinite patience, the Father bent on to us, found us again, stretched out his hands to bring us back to him, by helping us recognizing the life, the truth, the way. The only difficulty in this coming back home consists in avoiding ‘adding’ something on top of what is given to us, pretending that ‘I’ know better. This ‘extra’ that we add comes from ourselves, our own interests, our own weaknesses disguised as strengths. We still want a bit more of this, a bit less of that, because ‘I’ think that this is nicer, and ‘I’ can’t really accept that. We fear, we worry, and we forget what life is, what the truth shows, where the way is. We’re swallowed by our own thoughts and projections. We’re hunted by our own ghosts. We get lost—until he comes finding us again, reminding us: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”