Inner Compass
# Reference
- Source: Margaret Silf
- Keywords: Cards/permanent notes
- #religion #spirituality #personaldevelopment
- Relevant Notes:
# Notes
Your fourth required reading discusses attachment, which is a serious obstacle from good discernment, and how to counter it with detachment.
Margaret’s book Inner Compass: An Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality deals, among other things, with the issue of attachments and learning how to detach from them in order for one to make a sound discernment.
# Reflection Questions
- Why does Silf call attachment as “being hooked?” What does being “hooked” do to a person?
- Being hooked…
- …takes up all of our energy and attention
- …distorts us, making us stiff and lopsided
- …is exhausting, straining, stiffening
- Being “hooked” makes us feel a lot of turmoil and anxiety…all these feelings are warning signals issued by our spiritual musscles to tell us that our Who center, our real self, is ==not designed for such dependency==
- Related to the function of pain in our body (See Cards/The True Self)
- Letting go of the hook may be painful at first (falling onto the cold hard ground)…but it makes us free to move on our own again
- “It is a hard-won and painful freedom, but it is freedom, and it signals growth.” Cards/We grow when we let go
- The importance of wonder…of being open to possibilities outside of this hook (See Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder)
- Being hooked…
- What does our deepest desire have to do with detachment? (Take note of the difference between the stick way versus the carrot way.) ^b0c625
- We can deal with our addictions in two ways:
- Stick way (the ascetic way): Cards/Ascetism
- I am becoming aware that I have these particular dependencies, attachments, compulsion, crutches, idols
- I will spend all my energy in trying to destroy them
- If my idols are like the Isarelites’ golden calf, then I will attend ot the matter of getting rid of my calf
- I will achieve freedom in this way
- Carrot way (the way of the deepest desire): ^ab5855
- I am becoming aware of my attachments…
- I will not try to get rid of them by my own efforts.
- Instead, I will use the limited energy I have to attend to those things in my experience where I feel right with God, or on solid ground, or living true.
- These will become the music in my heart that leads me into the dance and overrides the fear that keps me clinging to the rails.
- I will not spend my energy trying to melt down my golden calf.
- Instead, I will turn my attention to the holy mountain and my journey toward it, with all of God’s surprises along the way.
- Cards/Absolute Certainty versus Wonder: the need to have a mindset focused on wonder
- In this way, God will lead me to freedom without my even realizing that is is happening.
- Stick way (the ascetic way): Cards/Ascetism
- We can deal with our addictions in two ways:
- Describe the difference between the Strategy of Enslavement versus the Strategy of Liberation. ^96bf2e
- The first is me centered; the second is God centered
- The first is labored and heavy; the second is light and joy filled
- The first depends on sticks, the second on carrots
- The first is centered on my fears, the second on my desires
- The first is a burden, the second an adventure
# Other Highlights
Ignatius urges us to seek the freedom of detachment or indifference…In his Cards/The First Principle and Foundation, [he] talks about “making use of those things that help to bring us closer to God and leaving aside those things that don’t.”
^d1053a