Detachment

There is an axiom that teaches us a great lesson of life but few people pay heed to or pause to reflect on it. You know the axiom well enough to recall it even before I do. “If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s yours; if not it was not meant for you”. How true! We have many times found ourselves in a bind, no, in a quagmire of triangulated relationship that we thought it was only right to stay in there and gradually rot away. On the other hand, we have manipulated people and forced them to stay in a painful and hostile relationship even against their will only to congratulate ourselves for the job well done. Many parents are guilty of this, doing things for their children even when they know they should not and after wards they tell their children, see how much I have done for you yet you do not appreciate it. If you ask me, I will say this, after a certain age, you do not owe your children anything except to love them and just be there for them. It is at times like this that the children should reciprocate their parents’ love.

Detachment is an act of loving and letting go. There is a powerful story in Mark’s Gospel 10: 18-27 that demonstrates this point. This is a story about the rich young man who went to Jesus to enquire about what he had to do in order to have eternal life. Christ instructed him to keep the commandments. He reported that he had kept the commandments since his childhood. “Then Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him and said, “For you, one thing is lacking. Go sell what you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in Heaven. Then come and follow me”. On hearing these words, his face fell and he went away sorrowfully for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God”.

So what was the young man’s problem? Is being rich a bad thing? Was Christ condemning those who are rich? By no means! The issue at stake here is detachment. The young man’s problem is his attachment to material things and this sets him at variance with his quest for spiritual things. Having material things is a blessing from God. Many biblical characters were very rich indeed. Let us take a brief roll call. Abraham? He was a rich man. Jacob? Rich. David? Rich. Solomon? Multimillionaire. Amos? A rich man, etc. The problem is not being rich but what to do with your wealth. You see, God did not bless you with wealth to be kept for yourself. He gave you material things so that you may use them to bless others. But when you are attached to your wealth to the point that you cannot share it with others that is where condemnation comes in. Attachment to material things does not guarantee our happiness. On his teaching on avarice Christ has this message for us all, “Watch, and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man’s life is not made secure by what he owns, even when he has more than he needs’, Lk. 12:15.

Our experience in life has made us to think we need this person or that person in order to be happy; that we must drive this car or that to be comfortable or that we have to be in this particular relationship, even when it is suffocating us, to feel good about myself. These are all wrong assumptions and thinking like this creates a distorted worldview that has imprisoned us and deprives us of happiness. No one can give us happiness; nothing can guarantee it. Happiness is within us. Look at all the movie and TV stars and consider how much money they have; then look at their life style and then measure their degree of happiness. Does it not seem to you that many poor people are happier than they are? We have to confront our false assumptions and distorted views to life. In order to be free to live and love we have to let go of our attachments. Once we let go of these nightmarish attachments, they will no longer have any power over us; then we will understand what happiness truly is. Remember: the best of friends do not live in each other’s pocket. Let go and let God!