Tag: freedom

The Power of Detachment in Relationships

    What most people are looking for in a relationship, whether inside or outside of marriage, is someone who is totally attached to them: completely committed and passionately in love. 

    While we tend to think of detachment negatively, as disinterest, aloofness, or lack of feeling, exactly what we would not want in a relationship, if we look at it in a different way, it is an important virtue in any relationship, whether with God or another human being.

    Detachment in most world religions means “inner freedom.” Jesus never used the word but it was implicit in his spirituality: the ability to let go and let God. Detachment is about “not my will, but Thy will be done,” surrendering to the divine, putting your life in God’s hands.

    Detachment is a key Buddhist virtue, and Meister Eckhart, the great Christian mystic, believed that in relationship to God, detachment was more foundational than love. We cannot love God fully and unconditionally as long as we are clinging to our ego. Like the rich young man who chose not to give up his wealth and follow Jesus, our ego-attachments can block our love of God.

    Detachment is likewise crucial with human relationships. You cannot really love someone if you are attached to your agenda, how they should look or how the relationship or marriage should be. Your list of characteristics of the ideal mate: good-looking, healthy, wealthy, sexy, professional, romantic, etc may prevent you from appreciating someone right in front of you.

    The key to any relationship is acceptance, to accept your partner as they are, with all their faults, and to celebrate their differences from you, the things not on your list. Hopefully, they will also be detached from their agenda and accept you as you are with your faults and differences.

    The most important thing is to be attached only to God. The first of the biblical Ten Commandments is that we should put God first in all things, nothing should come before God. It is crucial to put God before everything, including human relationships. Then you can exist in the single life, in a relationship, or in marriage in inner freedom.

    So many people are stressed-out about their relationships. If they are not in a relationship they are obsessed about when they are going to meet the right person. If they are in a relationship they are obsessed about where it is going or if it is going to end in marriage or not. If they are married they often wish their marriage was better, or wish they were not married at all. 

    It is very easy to let your attachment to a relationship or marriage get in the way of your relationship with God. I have known people who stopped attending their place of worship or gave up their spiritual practices or compromised their morals and self-esteem and basically sold their soul, all in an attempt to maintain a relationship. At that point the relationship has become an idol, that is, they have put it above their relationship with God.

    It is important to do your part to make a relationship or marriage work, but it is far more important to put God first, keep your integrity, not make the other person into an idol, and detach from the outcome. If you let go and let God, the outcome will always be better than if you cling to a relationship out of fear of being alone or some ego-need. 

    The relationship is going to end at some point anyway. Even if you get married it may end through separation, divorce, or death of your spouse. Besides that, God has called some people to be single, it is not God’s will that they be with someone. God has something greater in mind, some charitable work, social justice project, or mystical marriage, that is, marriage to God.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director and marriage coach. www.brucetallman.com

THE PARADOX OF RELIGION

The paradox of being human is that 

we have two competing drives:

the desire to belong

to find the security of community

and the desire to stand alone

and have a personal relationship with God

we also long for freedom

but therein lies another paradox: 

true freedom is found in community

not isolation/rejection of all institutions 

including religious organizations

still another paradox: religious people 

because they set their standards high

are particularly susceptible to shadow-problems –

they think they always have to be good/virtuous

but striving for this paradoxically activates 

their dark side by repression

so their subconscious mind contains

all their unChristlike drives

even clergy could not get excited about religion

since they defined “religion” as “institution”

and “spirituality” as “experiential/personal/lively faith” –

therefore not religion but spirituality turned their crank/

brought them to the living God

however, so much holiness is lost to religious organizations

because men refuse to share the secrets of their hearts 

with one another in community –

“Men preach to one another to avoid self-disclosure 

and thus paradoxically avoid holiness”

– John Henry Newman

but other religious men are prophetic conduits of Spirit 

like Canadian folk legend Bruce Cockburn 

who take the Cross as their window on the world 

allowing them to face the apocalyptic world

all around and within them –

their awareness of the Cross allows them  

to compassionately handle shadow-problems

in the heart of the world and in their own hearts.

GOD/FREEDOM/ADDICTION/PAIN

Without God you have no foundational significance

no unshakeable experience

and you get into needing constant self-validation/

self-proving: everyone becomes your competitor

and you are lost in fragmentary/fleeting experiences

that signify nothing.

 

Values highly prized by society: freedom/prosperity

come from God, but without God they become warped

into licence (no morals)/money-addiction –

the values were originally exceedingly good

but need to be rooted in their Divine Source.

 

The disempowerment/apathy/enslavement

caused by patriarchal institutions may be responsible

for all the addictions in our society

that give us the temporary illusion

of escaping our captivity.

 

If you are never fully in the Now where God is

you will never feel full and fulfilled

you will always grasp for more

and become a control freak/addict.

 

The enemy is us and the friend is us –

the more we can befriend ourselves

the more we can admit that we mistakenly think

that the way to get happy

is to blame someone else, even God.

 

Does God chastise us/cause our suffering?

I don’t know but Augustine thought so:

“I exceeded all the boundaries of Your law

and I did not escape your chastisement –

sin has its consequences.

But you were always with me, mercilessly punishing me

in order to lead me to the true delight

that is only found in You –

You fashion pain to be a lesson

You strike to heal.”

 

Is thinking that God punishes us out of love

a warped view of God?

I don’t know, but I think so.

ENLIGHTENMENT IN ALL WORLD RELIGIONS

“The enlightenment you seek in other religions

has been present in Christianity from the beginning.”

– Richard Rohr

 

The word “mystical” is often equated to “magical”

in secular/scientific contexts and so easily dismissed

but true mysticism – direct experience of God –

is the essence and starting point of all world religions.

And awe in the face of mystery

is the starting point of science.

Our God is an awesome God

who indwells everything – in the lab and in the temple.

 

Jesus lived as the spokesperson for Temple and Torah

the all-powerful symbols that the transcendent God

dwells within Israel and orders Israel’s life

the two most central and never-ending Jewish beliefs.

 

The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) –

a meeting of 2500 Catholic bishops for four years –

the largest and longest meeting of Church leaders ever –

had only one goal – to carry forward the work

of the Jewish man/God, Jesus the Christ

who came to rescue not judge

to give witness to the Truth

to serve and not be served

to give his life as a ransom for many.

When your little “I am” becomes “We are”

you know instinctively: life is not about you

you are about life. You are here to serve like Jesus:

“I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me”

– St. Paul in Galatians 2:20.

 

“To dare to do what is right,

to not float about in the realm of possibilities

but to seize what is real and to take action,

this is true freedom.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer

and this is the true fulfillment of religion whether

Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Hinduism/Buddhism –

to not be so heavenly bound

you are no earthly good.

If there are no charitable works

there is no enlightenment in any religion whether

Christianity/Judaism/Islam/Hinduism/or Buddhism.

THE DRAGON, HUMAN NATURE, AND NEW HOPE

The dragon – a mythological creature of chaos and destruction 

swirls all around us – but the Lord of All Creation is there too

dancing in the dragon’s jaws.

We want to rise above cruel nature – jaw-red/claw-red –

to find a Universal Compassion we name ‘God’

but Ego restrains both our lower and higher nature –

the Id and Superego Sigmund Freud tried to integrate.

.

Integrating soul and body, John Macquarrie,

a Scottish philosopher/Anglican theologian/priest

developed an anthropology of finite freedom:

we are free but not totally free –

therefore, humans are a perpetual problem to themselves –

our finitude: circumstances/genetic makeup/

socioeconomic status/past decisions/sinful tendencies

restrain our grandiose visions.

 

New hope about human nature came from

the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965)

when it declared a universal call to holiness –

a holiness no longer out of reach of ordinary humans –

all are called to be holy – even the simplest peasant

can be as holy as great saints like Anthony of Egypt.

 

More hope came from the renewal of ancient pilgrimages

like the Camino de Santiago – average citizens making

the hero-saint’s journey of separation/initiation/return:

on the Camino across northern Spain

you follow the Way of St. James – the Camino de San Tiago –

you are separated from your ordinary life

supernatural forces are at play and recounted

around campfires lit by pilgrims/peregrinos

and a decisive victory is won if, after 800 kilometres, you reach

the Cathedral of Santiago with its swinging botafumero

a giant censor fuming incense swung to the rafters by six men.

Then you return to your former life

with boons – new life insights – to offer others.

 

The greatest hope always comes from our Ever-Forgiving God:

“These people do not trust me even though

I want nothing but their sanctification – their holiness –

and I bear with them in great patience

because I loved them without them ever loving me.”

– God speaking to Catherine of Sienna

BABY BOOMER AGING

There is a huge shift going on: the Boomer Generation is moving into old age, so this is a big issue for them.

Aging can be approached positively or negatively: as harvest not winter, fulfillment not loss, freedom from work not limitation of income, soul-time not more self-time.

If you have aged well you are now an elder and have some wisdom to share with the younger generation. You know that life is about service, not just more winning. In this regard, Jesus said “I came to serve not be served” and the Twelfth Step from Alcoholics Anonymous is “I give my life away.”

If you have aged well you know that the first half of life is your “survival dance” and the second half is your “sacred dance.” You had a lot to prove in the first half. Now that you have done it, as Frank Sinatra sang “It all seems so amusing.” You don’t have to prove anything to anyone, including yourself, anymore.

A good book on the second half of life is Richard Rohr’s Falling Upward.

www. brucetallman.com, Facebook: “Bruce Tallman – Spiritual Director and Marriage Coach”

HOW THINGS WORK

HOW GOD, THE UNIVERSE, AND YOUR LIFE WORKS

    Order, disorder, reorder. You can detect this universal pattern on a macro, micro, and personal level.

    If there was only order, there would never be any change, creativity and growth. If there was only disorder, things would be total chaos. 

    The universe goes through periods of order, followed by disorder, and then reorders everything at a new level over vast time periods. There was God (order) before the Big Bang (disorder) and then giant stars eventually formed (reorder). This new order had limited chemical elements, but the giant stars exploded (disorder) and seeded the universe with all the elements of the periodic table in new smaller, more stable stars (reorder). 

    God created natural laws and then let nature obey those laws. Rather than controlling everything, God wanted to see all the creative new things nature would produce on its own: butterflies, jaguars, whales, etc.

    Theologically, this theory is called “deism” which, although appealing, is  problematic because God is reduced to a kind of detached observer of the universe. The opposite problem, if God is too dictatorial, reduces God to ‘tyrantism.” Then destructive volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, forest fires, and floods become acts of (a cruel) God.

    The same problem occurs at the human level. If God is not involved, God does not care, and if God is too controlling, we become robots. If there is no human freedom, there is no love. The solution is for God to allow us to be free and also for God to be involved in the form of persuasive love. That desire for greater fulfillment all humans have is God’s persuasive love constantly calling us to new levels of integration.

    According to “process theology,” nature as a whole moves inexorably towards greater consciousness and love because God constantly lures it to new levels of fulfillment.

    Most of the time nature is orderly, but some of the time, in obeying its own laws, nature creates disorder. Sometimes forests burn down but new plants and animals emerge. A giant meteor collided with Earth, ending the dinosaurs but allowing mammals such as humans to eventually exist. 

    Religions also go through order, disorder, and reordering. Conservatives can get stuck at the first stage – they want too much order and fear change and creativity. Religious liberals can get trapped in deconstructing religion and not be able to put their faith back together again, so they end up in chaos or virtual atheism. However, there are always people who seek to reorder their religion at a higher level. Examples in Christianity are Thomas Berry, Marcus Borg, and Brian McLaren.

    In your own life you might experience order for a while. You seem to have it all together and then disorder happens through divorce, illness or unemployment. If you are resilient and follow God’s inner calling, you may be able to reorder your life and make sense of it in a new way. 

    Disorder and suffering are caused by the freedom of nature and humans, not by God. God only allows them so new growth may occur. For example, you might learn to appreciate being single or happily remarry, learn better health care or to cope with your disability, or find more fulfilling work. 

    Hopefully, whatever happens, you can reorder your life with more compassion, gratitude and wisdom. This is God’s desire for you as God’s persuasive love calls forth the best that is in you in each new year.

Bruce Tallman is a London spiritual director, marriage coach and religious educator of adults. brucetallman.com