The Grace of Detachment

When I first read about Christian detachment it made perfect sense to me. All created things are God’s, so we appreciate them in context of their being His. It’s also true that I have never been particularly attached to inanimate objects. In high school my father referred to me as the “Spartan child” because I refused to have a cluttered room. I had my bed, my desk with a typewriter and pages, my stereo with a few records, a few books, and the doll my grandmother made for me on a shelf. I pushed my dresser into my closet so I wouldn’t have to tolerate it except while getting dressed.

Then I read an essay a few years ago about the need to detach from the people we love. I wish I could remember the source and author, but those are lost in my memory. I puzzled over it, not really understanding how detaching from my loved ones would work. How would that not make me distant and unloving? How could I possibly love the littles any less; they are so totally lovable? Then about two years ago I heard Fr. Chad Ripperger’s talk on this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NPXTV4yJ18&t=2799s

His thesis for the talk is that Catholics must be detached from absolutely everything except God. If we are not, Satan can use these attachments against us. This makes sense to me, but I didn’t really understand how to live it with human beings. I am not sure I was ever attached to an inanimate object. But I have been attached to food. Food has been part of my love language, but also a disordered element of my life sometimes. Detaching from it as a young adult required reframing its role in my life as fuel rather than as comfort or punishment. There were bumps along the way of this reframing. If one has eaten sugar regularly, as I have, there will be bodily symptoms that must be overcome before the roots of the attachment can be exposed, so if this is an issue for others, just be patient as the process works. I have found the ketogenic nutrition program to be a big assist in this area. I can just eat whatever is put in front of me rather than going crazy with cravings and worrying about still being hungry even after a meal as I generally am after a meal with processed carbohydrates of any kind.

Detaching from my desire to control everything has proved more difficult. I’m German so I’m convinced that my competence will save the day in many situations when I need to let go and let God. This has become easier the more often I see His hand in the workings of my life. Those signs were there all along, but I can be slow.  

Both of these – food and control – required some mortification to get rid of those attachments. I have offered up the cravings and sometimes physical pain of getting rid of foods that I enjoy but that ultimately work against my physical health and spiritual wellbeing. I have learned not to speak most of the time, especially when I’m in an unsettled emotional state. This is particularly helpful when I am trying to control something silly like traffic. I can’t control traffic, so railing against it wasn’t even helpful, and agitated me further. While I always think my mortifications are half baked and not particularly saintly, these were beneficial enough for me to see where the attachments were and proved that I could cooperate with the graces I received in order to fully detach.

But I continued to have attachments with people. I continued not to understand how to detach from them but still be fully engaged with them. Prayer is a truly powerful tool, so I kept at it. I kept asking about it and how to live it. I felt like I just didn’t understand how to apply this to the people around me. I love a lot of people, and I always hope that they will love me, too. Many of them do, but some of them do not. And some of them who love me do not love me in the way that I wish they did.

The morning of January 14, 2025, I was having a fairly standard conversation with Tom. I do not even remember the topic. That’s how typical of a marital conversation it was. About 2/3 of the way through, I got a very strange sensation. If I were to try to describe it even now I might say that something broke inside me, but that’s not really a good descriptor. I felt different. I felt a kind of calm that I’d never experienced. It was wonderful and unsettling.

As I went about my daily duties and devotions, I tried to understand what had happened. Over the next few days, I came to see that I had been given a grace. And as usual it is a totally undeserved grace. I have detached from people. I am no longer interested in trying to extract love from people in the way that I want it. If some of the people I love never tell me that they love me, that’s fine. If some of the people I love never actually love me in return, that’s fine. I want for them what God wants for them, and for all of us to get to heaven.  

I see it clearly now. We are all His. This dysregulation and attachment has been partly because of my pride that I want to be in control of relationships. I want to be loved the way I want to be loved, not the way the other person loves me. My children and grandchildren healed me of part of this because they love me so spectacularly, but there was still that element of extended family who I want to love me as much as I love them. And they don’t. And that hurt.

But now it doesn’t. In part it now doesn’t hurt because I see my flaws without self-loathing. I used to tell myself that I’m just not lovable the way other people are lovable, and that’s why they didn’t love me. Now I see us as all broken sinners who are shuffling along doing the best we can. And sometimes my best isn’t very good. I’m sure that’s true for everyone. I know that I have not achieved humility, but this step is a really helpful one. Having an accurate evaluation of myself rather than the mean inner critic just having a field day assists me in loving others.

And, wow, loving others without an agenda is a revelation. I’m no longer trying to extract a particular sentiment from anyone. I’m not keeping track of whether anybody has messaged, called, or talked to me first. I don’t care if they never say the three little words. I love them, and that’s plenty.

Obviously, this is all still very new to me. I pray that it is not premature or haughty for me to write about. But miracles are always unexpected and undeserved, and so I wanted to share what I have learned so far. If this isn’t what you struggle with, don’t hesitate to ask for a miracle in the area you are struggling with. He knows us better than we know ourselves and can heal all of the broken parts.