Is detachment the answer to freedom? No, because detachment is negative - it is to be without. The answer must be positive - I must replace what I have with something better.
Interpretation
True freedom comes not from detachment but from enriching our lives with positive alternatives.
In this quote, Mother Angelica emphasizes that simply detaching from what we have is not a viable answer to achieving freedom. Instead, she advocates for a proactive approach where one seeks to replace negative elements in their life with something positive and fulfilling, suggesting that true liberation comes from personal growth and improvement rather than abandonment.
In practice
In a motivational speech about personal development.
I am not like a pebble on the beach - a grain of sand on the seashore or just one of millions of human beings past, present and future. No, I am a unique human being loved by God as if I were an only child - the only fruit of his creative powers.
I must not permit the evil capabilities of human nature to sour my faith in the tremendous good that is possible despite the frailty of that nature.
The sinner who suddenly realizes God's love for him and then looks at his rejection of that love feels a loss similar to the death of a loved one. A deep void is created in the soul and a loneliness akin to the agony of death.
Our memories are our own, and we cannot blame anything or anyone in the past for any pain dwelling there. If we open the door to them or keep hashing over past incidents in our minds, we have only ourselves to blame.
Man can and does rationalize his sins. He finds reasons for all his weakness, invents excuses that first calm and then deaden his conscience. He blames God, society, education, and environment for his wrong doing.
Love has been defined, analyzed, explained and excused. It has been the cause of wars, feuds, heroism, martyrdom, inordinate passion, and beautiful friendships. It pulls two people of opposite temperaments together into a married state and permits them to live happily. It makes friends understand each other without the necessity of words.
Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.
It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.
The most sophisticated people I've ever known had just one thing in common: they were all in touch with their inner children.
There is no possibility of relaxation if you have a mind and an ego; the ego is the center of the mind. You will be tense, you will remain tense. How to relax? Is there any way to relax? There is no way unless understanding is there. If you understand the nature of the world, the nature of the very existence, then who are you to worry, and why be in a worried state continuously?
In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
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