“A burning passion coupled with an absolute detachment is the key to all success.” (M.K. Gandhi, “The Mind of Mahatma Gandhi)

Each day I receive, what I call, two picture quotes. One each day is from a site in India that puts out a quote from Mahatma Gandhi. The one for today is above. This one was particularly meaningful since it made me aware of the struggle inside to balance my passion with detachment. The success that Gandhi is talking about, in my opinion, is not always the success of the world but the success that one is doing the right thing and the peace that success delivers.

I naturally tend to be passionate and detachment but not often at the same time or to same degree. It is good to be passionate about persons or a cause but getting too attached to persons, things or causes can bring disappointment and misery. It is good to be detached from people, things and issues but we need people, meaningful work and some things in our life to survive.

After the baseball game yesterday we took our seven year godson and his eight year old brother downstairs in the stadium to participate in the Sunday tradition of running the bases after the game. There was already a long line when we got to what we thought was the end of the line. We will there for awhile till the game end. A man behind us in the line pointed out that was not the end of the line. That was okay but then he added we were there only 30 seconds which was not true. As we were walking by him to the end of the line I said he was right about us breaking in the line but wrong about it being only 30 seconds since we had been there for about five minutes. He reiterated his comment about 30 seconds and I found myself getting mad at him. My passion got a hold of me. As we walked on and on, looking for the end of the waiting line, I was upset that I got upset over such a little thing as the time we were there. The line keep going on and on and by the time we got to the real end it was halfway around the stadium. Someone estimated we had an hour wait and the kids were not that interested in running the bases, so we left the line and went outside where the two boys could run around before going to our car. In this small incident passion overwhelmed detachment.

Sometimes I am passionate critical about action of leaders of our Catholic Church and even in one letter to editor hinted that they were hypocrites, actors who were just pretending to do what they preached. Once when I was speaking critical about the Catholic Church a person, a former Catholic, asked why I was still a Roman Catholic, a good question. I make no excuses for my passion to practice what we preach but do not always keep my detachment from what Church officials say but do not do.

I do not believe I will ever be perfectly passionate yet absolutely detached. But the success of the balance between passion and detachment, like most good things in life, is worth striving for.

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