Tell me, “no attachment” and I want to fight you. No attachment is nuts. The essay on thehindu.com says, “We are only custodian of what God has given us . . .” But . . . lovers and spouses? Children? No attachment is a bit strong. I’m good with “no unhealthy attachments.”
Then the bickering starts over what is and isn’t unhealthy. I asked Microsoft Copilot, “In Hindu philosophy, the concept of detachment has been emphasized for thousands of years. The idea is rooted in ancient texts like the Vedas and the Upanishads, which date back to around 1500 BCE. These texts highlight the importance of transcending personal attachments to achieve spiritual growth and enlightenment. The Bhagavad Gita, another key text, also discusses the significance of detachment in the pursuit of a higher spiritual path.”
All good. Settled issue and we can go back to weeding our plot of heirloom tomatoes? Hardly. If there is any feature of people and religion is that we have not stopped arguing about what we believe. Another feature is the clever sorts who view the principles of faith as instructions on how to cheat. That’s not . . . right!
The Law is Not Enough
Yeah. It hasn’t stopped them. I’m one of the sincere ones who wants to emulate Christ and does a crappy job of it. I was raised by an electrical engineer and a social worker. Both were devoted Presbyterians. I know the Way. I try to embody it but my discipleship can always be better. Fail? Not really.
In 2002 or so I was attached to revenge. She needed to come correct so I could be happy. This was when I’d read a book by a California Family Court judge on divorce. The judge wanted us to stop bringing petty and stupid cases to her court. She asked us to treat each other like business partners. So I declared that she needed to do that.
Me? I wasn’t the bad actor. SHE was the cause of it all. It gets worse. I thought the guys in my fellowship group needed to do what the judge’s book said. If they could come correct then I could be happy. They were the codependents, not me. You know where this is going.
Grace is Antithetical
The guys heard the judge’s message this way, “give grace first.” Be a gentleman to her regardless of what she does. My list of grievances was long. I was deeply attached to all of them. Letting go was a process.
But . . . staying attached to negative intimacy with her did far more damage than letting go and letting God. So I committed to using the Celebrate Recovery Eight Principles as a path to repentance. It’s been twenty-two years. I’m much stronger in my faith.
I’ve been tested. Martha Rollins took us into the Blue Ridge Mountains to a property she was selling. The purpose of the weekend was to struggle with our innate racism and whiteness. I learned very quickly that no amount of groveling would be sufficient. My ancestry convicted me. So I tried, gently, to remind those present that Christ calls us to be merciful, to give grace first.
How?
Beatrice Robinsion, a fellow Boaz & Ruth apprentice, asked me, “how did you survive that weekend without losing it?” I don’t know. It was sort of like a right of passage where I had to remain strong in spite of the slings and arrows of outrageous oppression flung at me. I completed the right of passage stronger.
Here is the point: unhealthy attachments separate us from Christ. Martha was attached to a form of liberation theology that was too deeply Maoist. So her explanation of what was the root cause: white people. I say it a lot in this space. My adjectives and ancestry convict me. Martha was herself WASP and bougie. She shares some adjectives with me that convict her as well. Her apology was Boaz & Ruth.
Giving grace first is a 道 (Way). Practicing it requires shedding attachments to aspects of our lives that hinder our discipleship. So I cannot be a disciple of Christ devoted to giving grace first and still demand that she come correct.
Winning
Matthew 5:38-40, ““You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” Lots of people read that and think, “loser. Turn the other cheek and get beat worse.” Yes, in 2024 as I write this, that could happen.
Two things, though. First, turning the other cheek to a Roman soldier was an act of defiance. It dared the soldier to hit you again. Risky, but usually, more escalation than the soldier wanted. Next, a basic move in Jujitsu is to step through the attack, exposing the attacker to a reply with a blade.
This leads me here: too many of us, in the heat of the moment, when our emotions are on the boil, revert to memorized behavior patterns that can make things worse. We fall back to fighting habits built over a lifetime. Winning includes ensuring that the aggressors plan fails, “I’ll slap the Jew out of that one!” But you move and the attack finds air instead of you.

Roots and Wings
A feature (bug?) of some modern culture is totalism. It has to be 100%. Anything short of that is a failure. So if you agree that attachments are a problem and you bring a totalistic frame, thus the only acceptable outcome is no attachments, sucks to be you. Because no matter how skilled you become at navigating life and your dedication to total detachment, a little 陰 will stick to you.
Your attachment to totalism will keep a spiritual itch no amount of scratching can relieve. Borrowing a phrase from my Taiwanese ex-wife, “the world is complex/compound.” Attachment to religion, to our kin, to surrender and sacrifice, to mercy and grace, and to service, these will bring the health and 陽 you are missing.
We elect the next President in a week as I write this. One candidate sounds like a shrill, spurned party girl recovering from an epic thirty-six hours that began Friday after work. The other sounds like the Dad who will give her a ride from jail (again). The party-girl is in that low place where she still think she’s all the hotness and fun but all that she had on Friday is gone. Now her roots are showing and her wings have melted.
Riding God’s Thermals
My struggle is real. I haven’t worked since last spring. When will I return to work? Can’t say. I turned sixty-five two weeks ago. I walked the road less traveled as a member of the Arts class. The presumed plan of saving, investing and maxing out 401k didn’t get followed. I have enough cash to carry me through next month. After that? Kinda scary.
And yet . . . each time trouble looms it’s never as bad as I fear. This time, with <$100.00 to my name, I was able to recover the account name and password of the bank account that has what remains of my Dad’s estate money. So instead of making plans to move to a storage unit I’m staying. Forty-six years of teetering on the edge of personal disaster, sometimes falling into that abyss, and then things work out.
It’s amazing how God loves fools and children. I’m a fool He loves. His timing sucks. Things get down to the wire before they work out. But things do work out.
Absurdly Good
Now that I am at retirement age the college, white collar union job, house, wife, kids, behave well with money path is behind me. Uncle Sam offers $1200.00/month to sustain me. Not enough. These usual answers won’t work. So the unusual, the absurd answer becomes the better answer.
That absurd answer is to Trust God and to trust the pattern of the last forty-six years. It includes this space and my Shopify Store. My paternal Grandfather spent his last decades tinkering with a machine he said would vacuum fry fruit at scale. The idea is sound. His implementation, with interior surfaces painted with lead paint, was a fail. You can buy vacuum puffed fruit online. He died with his machine never producing what it was designed to make.
Grandpa was stalked by a shopping cart his whole life. He and I are kindred spirits. We are the absurd answer to all the well-adjusted kin who did all the right things. Contrary to what many say, you can detach from the expected life pattern and leave a beautiful legacy.