About a week ago, I was in a minor car mishap.  It’s the second time in the last several years that this has happened, and it occurred in almost exactly the same way each time.  In one instance I was at an intersection waiting for a light to turn green and in the other instance I was waiting for traffic to clear so I could exit a parking lot.  I wasn’t even moving, and then “bang,” and a sudden lurch forward as my car was struck from behind.  Each time, I was immediately grateful I was not taking a sip of coffee at that exact moment.

In both instances the car behind me had also been stopped and then, inexplicably, stepped on the gas and lunged into my rear bumper.  In neither case was anyone hurt.  My bumper bears a couple scars, but each time I was happy to tell the person who hit me to forget about the damages. 

I let them off the hook because I am so saintly and because I am so unattached to material things.  Not.

I let my bumper-bumpers off the hook because I drive a jalopy and I just don’t care much about it.  If I was driving a shiny new car, I probably wouldn’t be so saintly.  The easiest way to avoid being attached to stuff is not to have stuff you’re attached to.

You know who knew this?  Saints (real saints, not posers like me).

The desert-dwelling hermits of the early Church didn’t flee to the desert to pray just because they didn’t like people or because they hated the traffic in downtown Alexandria or Antioch.  They fled to the desert to get away from temptation.  They gave away all their possessions to be free from attachments.

They lived lives that look heroic to us in their asceticism, but that life of privation was not so much proof of their strength as proof of their weakness.  They knew that unless they retreated from attachments and temptations they would fall prey to them, just as quick as I would call my insurance agent to report a scratch on my new Caddy if I had one.

In some ways, those of us who live in the world and who have cars and houses and IRA’s have a tougher challenge in our spirituality than those who don’t have these things to tempt them.  We are continually at risk of being possessed by our possessions and being over-invested in our careers, our social status, and success.

Jesus tells us to take a hard look at our attachments and temptations and asks us to evaluate the hold they have on us.  If they have too firm a grip, the answer is not to imagine that we can grow in our internal detachment from them.  The answer is to give them up.  (Better to enter the Kingdom missing an eye or a right hand [or a Buick] than go to hell with all possessions intact; see Matthew 5:29-30.)

Sometimes the wise move is to let things go before they get a firm grip on you.  The easiest battle to win is one you never have to fight.

Prayer: You know I care too much about too little.  Help me to loosen my grip before I become a captive to my temptations and attachments.  Amen.