By Bob Sullivan
A lot of contemporary thinkers, writers, “life coaches” and motivational speakers tell us we are happiest, healthiest, and most successful when we keep proper balance in our lives.
We all take on many roles in our life over time. We are students, friends, spouses, parents, employees, employers, volunteers, and many other things on any given hour of any given day. When we place more of our attention, time, and effort into one of our roles, it means that another of our roles has less attention, time, and effort.
We are told to prioritize and organize our days in order to make sure we do not get too “heavy” in one area, thereby neglecting another area. If one places too much emphasis on career, their relationships with their children, their spouse, and their friends will suffer. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge. Whether he was simply greedy, or a workaholic, or both, Scrooge shows us what happens to us when we live life in an imbalanced way.
While this makes a lot of sense, it is a disordered approach to life. There is a better way, and it isn’t contrary or foreign to the concept above.
The Christian approach to life is not one of a list of priorities or a checklist which provides order. Think of a pie chart. Everyone likes pie. At least we like pie better than “to do” lists. In the center of the pie is God, and each piece of the pie (the pointy end) touches God:
My percentages are only for demonstrative purposes. Each of us allots different amounts of time, attention, and energy to different aspects of life, but as long as God is truly in the center of all we do, and as long as our relationship with God fuels and sustains all we do, the percentages matter less and less.
When God is placed in one or two categories on a list of priorities, there we find our trouble. This often happens, and when it does, God is placed in His own category. This is the true imbalance, because we are then compartmentalizing God to an hour on Sunday (at best). This allows us to engage in pursuits which are not good, and we pursue them as though God doesn’t know we are doing them.
If your mental picture is one of a hierarchy, there are a lot of things in your life which can be separated from God. You can also place a lot of things higher on the list than God, intentionally or unintentionally. Work is one of those things. Most people spend the majority of every day at some form of labor. This is one of the consequences of the fall in the Garden. As it is written in Genesis 3:19, By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
The Christian way is not to see life as a balance in which faith or “religion” is one of several things to consider, it is life in which our faith is the source from which all our actions and decisions follow. In this sense, those things which do not stem from and receive their fuel from our faith, need to be discarded.
If you direct your heart rightly, you will stretch out your hands toward him.
If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and do not let wickedness reside in your tents.
Job 11:13-14
What about those things which are not wicked and sinful? Can we keep those things around in our lives even if they are not governed or inspired by our faith? This can be answered with another question. When you have a really important goal or objective, do you like distractions and diversion? Nobody does. What is more important than eternal salvation?
Have you ever heard of detachment? This is the ancient Catholic practice of eliminating unnecessary things (things of the world) from your life. You start little by little, and eventually you look back and see that you were spending an enormous amount of time with your back turned to God. In the end, this is part of becoming deeply united with God while on earth. This is how the saint is made. St. Teresa of Avila explains it in her book “The Way Of Perfection”:
“Let us now come to the detachment which we must practice, for if this is carried out perfectly it includes everything else. I say ‘it includes everything else’ because, if we care nothing for any created things, but embrace the Creator alone, His Majesty will infuse the virtues into us in such a way that, provided we labor to the best of our abilities day by day, we shall not have to wage war much longer, for the Lord will take our defense in hand against the devils and against the whole world.”
One of St. Teresa’s attachments was small talk and conversation. She eventually detached from it as part of her growth in holiness.
Therefore, the answer is no, we cannot harbor attachment to things which are separate from God, neutral or otherwise, or fail to draw us closer to God. In fact, God is not properly the center of the pie chart. God permeates the entire pie. But for a better visual picture, we can keep the pie chart as it is, with God in the center. So toss out those lists and priorities, and have some pie instead. However, I have given up pie.
