zondag 14 april 2013

Poor and detached - not addicted

I have just started to read a book called Addiction and Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions by Gerald G. May. Although I am in the second chapter, it makes a good impression. I am reading it mainly because I am thinking about writing something about Cardiovascular Disease, Life Style Change, virtue ethics, and spirituality. This is one of the most similar books I have found.

One nice passage that I found was the following (p14):
"Detachment is the word used in spiritual traditions to describe freedom of desire. Not freedom from desire, but freedom of desire. Of all the concepts we will be discussing, detachment is the most widely misunderstood. For centuries, people have distorted its meaning, mistakenly assuming that detachment devalues desire and denies the potential goodness of the things and people to which one can become attached. Thus detachment has come to be associated with coldness, austerity, and lack of passion. This is simply not true. An authentic spiritual understanding of detachment devalues neither desire nor the objects of desire. Instead it 'aims at correcting one's own anxious grasping in order to free oneself for committed relationship to God.' (Ref: Wakefield, The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, 1983, p111) According to Meister Eckhard, detachment "enkindles the heart, awakens the spirit, stimulates our longings, and shows us where God is…' "

In this passage I recognize the spirit of poverty that people try to live in Opus Dei - loving the world, but always aimed at God first. 

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