A story is told about the 19th century Danish philosopher, theologian and poet, Soren Kierkegaard, whose prodigious outpouring of writings — 25 books over the course of a decade — may have contributed to a decline in his health. One day while walking the streets of Copenhagen, he collapsed. Different accounts have come down to us about what happened next, but one is that when witnesses rushed to him to render aid, he all but dismissed them, saying “Let it be. The maid will sweep it up in the morning.” He was taken to the hospital, where he soon died.

I suspect that were many of us to experience a similar event, we would find ourselves incapable of a witty response as we proceed directly to an interpretation of calamity. Lying on the sidewalk in this story, however, was a man of deep faith who refused to be bowed by a catastrophic health event and instead responded with serenity, acceptance and even humility. This is a curious story about detachment.

Developing a sense of detachment is an often-overlooked aspect of religious life. Religious personalities in various traditions seem able to detach themselves from the desires, fears, possessions and negative emotions that undermine tranquility and steal from us peace of mind.

In the New Testament, Jesus admonished his hearers not to store up treasures on earth (Matt. 6. 19), and St. Paul was in prison when he wrote “I have learned to be content in whatever state I am in” (Philippians 4.11). In his book “Spiritual Exercises,” Ignatius Loyola wrote of “holy indifference,” the idea that one should accept all that life has to offer — praise or blame, success or failure, sickness or health — for one can get closer to God come what may. These are all expressions of detachment.

Accepting detachment is emphasized in many religious traditions. The Second Noble Truth of Buddhism is that craving and clinging desires are the cause of suffering, so to overcome suffering one must let go of desires — meditation aids in achieving this. In Buddhism, detachment is freedom: Nirvana actually identifies the final extinguishment of desire and the ultimate state of freedom from attachment. In Islam, the idea of zuhd expresses that trust in God can so fill the human heart that one is left unaffected by acquisition and worldly desires. The faithful, then, should neither delight if wealth increases or fall into sadness if it is lost. Detachment shifts attention from the lesser worldly desires to higher things.

And it is worth noting that cognitive behavioral therapy, sometimes called the “gold standard” of contemporary psychotherapies, emphasizes the idea of “cognitive distancing.” What creates emotional upset is not so much things themselves, but our judgments about them. We impose on every object of emotional attention the designation of “good” or “bad,” and by our judgments we create our experiences of anxiety and fear. We have a talent for making a catastrophe out of almost anything that presents us with a problem in life, and with sufficient distancing, this therapy tells us, we can learn to see how this happens and gain psychic freedom and mental tranquility.

Detachment does not mean privation — you can be free of enslavement to material things and still buy new shoes. It does not mean a passive disengagement from life and must not be confused with apathy or complacency regarding injustices. To achieve spiritual detachment does not mean to stop caring about people or the world around us. Detachment as a spiritual notion is rather like learning to care with clarity, to see things as they are without ego or illusion, to desire what one already has. To achieve these things brings a certain tranquility of mind whatever the circumstance. Detachment, then, is a mind-calming way to live with gratitude and a sense of thankfulness without becoming enslaved to desires, for it is the logic of desire that when a desire for something one does not have is finally satisfied, another seems magically to take its place. One desire simply leads to another. Those who have achieved spiritual detachment step away from this never-ending cycle. They seem able to find common, more ordinary reasons for joy and contentment.

When Kierkegaard looked up at worried by-standers seeking to help him on the sidewalk, he knew he was dying. In some deep sense he had made peace with that. Moving beyond anxiety and fear he had come to accept all that life had given him, including that moment. And in that moment, he demonstrated detachment. Maybe he was saying that for all the desire that cannot be satisfied, for all the things in life we cannot change, for all the catastrophes that come our way perhaps we too should find a way to say, “Let the maid sweep it up in the morning.”

This is a contributed opinion column. Lloyd Steffen is university chaplain and professor of religion, culture and society at Lehigh University. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication.

https://www.mcall.com/2025/10/25/faith-values-on-the-importance-of-detachment/