An attachment to any of our relations or even to a stranger is hard enough to deal with. It can gradually pull us back toward the world and make cool the fire of our contrition. You cannot look to heaven and to earth at the same time; similarly, if you have not turned your back completely on your relatives and others in thought and in body, you cannot avoid endangering your soul. (John Climacus)

Is there a meaningful distinction between detachment and non-attachment?

John and Maximos and most - if not quite all - Western monastics advocate a very rigorous detachment. This is characterized by physical, temporal, mental, and spiritual separation from networks of worldly relationship. In the space opened up we are better able to find God and craft a meaningful relationship with God.

Might we be able to remain in worldly networks but find or make more space for God and our relationship with God?

Attach is derived from the Old French atachier which is to hold in place with a stake or a spike. It is the pounding of the stake, the effort to or insistence that we remain bound in place, that is the strength and the limitation of attachment. Pontius Pilate presumed to put Jesus in his place by driving spikes through his arms and legs.

Where I agree with John and other monastics is in the need to free ourselves from the social and egoistic stakes that hold us back from God. But in my experience it is our meaningful relationships with others that can often free ourselves to reach out to God.


The image above is Driving the Last Spike by Thomas Hill, showing the joining of the transcontinental railroad near Ogden, Utah.