Posts Tagged: detachment
“DON’T TRY TO CATCH THE GERBIL!”
Melody Beattie tells a wonderful story in her book The Language of Letting Go.
Her son brought home a gerbil to live with them. Sometime later, the gerbil escaped and eluded capture for the next six months. Melody and her son would catch sight of the gerbil, and would scream, “Catch him!” However, the gerbil was still on the lam.
Finally, she decided to give up. If the gerbil wanted to live a reclusive life, let him!
Shortly after deciding to let go of her attempts to catch the critter, he stopped beside her chair one day. She very gently stooped down, scooped up the gerbil, and put him back in his cage.
She concluded, “Detachment works.”
Yes, it does! It works for catching runaway gerbils—when they are ready to be caught.
There are times when I think that I am the gerbil. I am afraid to be caught, not realizing that what I call “being caught” might actually be a better version of freedom than my own furtive hiding and eating crumbs off the floor.
But I want to take this in another direction: Fear is why we run and why we hide. Fear is also why we want desperately to catch and cage certain memories, certain feelings, certain relationships.
Perhaps, in a sense, fear is the gerbil. Maybe we—maybe I—try too hard to track down, corner, and cage our fears. Maybe we should just let them run wild for a while, until we become more accepting our fears, and they become more accepting of us.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said that “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself.” Maybe we don’t even need to fear our fears.
Much of the evil I’ve done in my life, evil to myself, others, and ultimately to God, has been primarily caused by my fears and my desire to control them. I’ve wanted desperately to detach from my fears, when maybe what I have really needed to detach from was my desire to catch and cage my fears.
My new life-motto is “DON’T TRY TO CATCH THE GERBIL!”
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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