Radical Freedom

I’m really not sure how this summer experiment in posting out takes from the book has gone from a reader’s point of view. There haven’t been many comments, but my readership (according to my stat counter) seems to have remained steady. For me, it’s been fun to scan through old drafts and the original interviews, finding bits and pieces I had forgotten as the book evolved. Some of them are turning into other articles for other publications. Here’s a bit from one of my favorite books on Jesus:

Dominican author Albert Nolan argues that letting go is liberating, rather than oppressive. In Jesus Today: A Spirituality of Radical Freedom, Nolan argues that many of Jesus’ teachings point toward what modern writers call detachment, an attitude that can help free us from our anxious strivings: “Our egos cling desperately to things, to people, to times and places, to reputation and image, to professions and ministries, to our ideas and practices, to success and to life itself. These are our chains.” Like the rich young man who turns away from Jesus because he can’t let go of his possessions, we often miss what we most deeply desire because we are clinging to whatever we’ve got. It’s the old metaphor of the hand that’s gripping something, unable to receive something new. Accepting the things we cannot change simple means loosening our grip on life.

This, of course, is easier said than done. As Nolan points out, “Becoming free, radically free, takes time. Liberating ourselves from our attachments one by one is the work of a lifetime.”