The conflicts in today's society, the divisions, are sometimes so great that they resemble a wall that prevents us from seeing beyond. It is necessary to look up to see the destiny of brotherhood to which people are called. This elevated perspective can be achieved through the implementation of universal values.
Obviously, this upward gaze cannot be achieved once and for all, but must be pursued through a path of commitment that lasts a lifetime. It means aiming high in our lives, looking at "the things above" for a choice that completely changes our mentality, overturns the order and objectives that the world proposes to us, frees us from conditioning and leads us to experience a radical transformation.
As Chiara Lubich tells us, "the things from above" are those universal values that give flavor to life, such as love, harmony, peace, forgiveness, fairness, sharing, collaboration, purity, honesty, justice, etc.
But how can we keep our hearts oriented upward towards these values, while living in the middle of the world? Experience teaches us that we must let ourselves be guided by the thoughts and feelings of love, that is, with our inner gaze always aimed at living the law of love.
And it will be precisely the presence of these men and women committed to living love towards everyone, with all the difficulties of the present, to create relationships of true brotherhood and to build that "heaven" reality here on earth.
The courageous and decisive choice of a worker in Brazil, who decides to help his fired colleague, triggers a chain of brotherly gestures driven by his testimony. This is how he tells us:
"Dismissal letters arrived at the factory, one of which was addressed to Jorge. Knowing his precarious economic condition, I proposed returning with him to the personnel office. 'I'm better off than him,' I declared to the manager, 'my wife has a job. Fire me in her place." The boss, shaken by these words of mine, promised to review the case. As we leave, Jorge, moved, hugs me.
The episode passes from word to mouth and two other workers who are more or less in the same conditions as me offer themselves in place of two other fired workers.
Management is forced to rethink firing methods, while this desire to help those who lose their jobs spreads to others in the community.
The next day I learned that two students went to bring all their savings to workers in difficulty, declaring: "We too want to imitate the gesture of this worker and do something for those in difficulty."