Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [134]
A Christian must attain to this true freedom. The virtues of true self-knowledge and true consciousness will help him to recognize all cramped attitudes he may observe in himself as a form of self-indulgence, and thus to overcome them in the spirit of holy obedience. He must install guards in himself to watch this danger; and, again and again, meditate before God the perennial truth, “But one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42).
He must shatter the spell of obsession by relinquishing everything, from obedience, as soon as a higher value calls him. Whenever he feels in danger of succumbing to the tyranny of such a cramp, he must flee to Jesus and collect himself before His face, thus restoring his roots in the depths of his being and thereby recovering a serene detachment and an inner distance in regard to any given situation and particular concern.
Spiritual relaxation also inhibits true freedom
Now, as we said above, there are many people whose danger lies in an opposite direction: in the tendency, that is, to a false relaxation. These are characters inclined to drift along and to take easy whatever matters they have to deal with. They live in a thoughtless abandonment to the moment, and are happy if they can elude any consciousness of obligation. They are prone to disorder and an illegitimate love of comfort; they show little accuracy in redeeming their promises; they exhibit a lax and loitering behavior in general.
The unfreedom entailed by such an attitude is obvious. Persons of this type very often fall short of their chosen aim because they shun the tensions and efforts implied in its realization. They complacently submit to their natural aversions and inhibitions. They unreservedly surrender to whatever element or theme in a given situation happens to appeal to their nature. Any occasion for prattle is likely to seduce them into neglecting their duties. They waste the time assigned for work by dozing or daydreaming.
Without regard for the hierarchy of values, they obey the tendency of their nature to prefer always the easy way, to choose in any alternative what is more comfortable, less arduous, requiring less effort and involving less asperity.
Their unfreedom consists in the fact that, instead of a true response to value engaging their personality, they follow the pull of their nature and without resistance yield to its tendency towards the peripheral and the irrelevant and whatever is devoid of tension.
This glib submission to their natural tendencies many of them mistake for freedom, seeing that they always do what they like, without feeling constrained by any shackles. Others, again, rightly experience their inability to convert their resolutions into acts as a painful lack of freedom; their laxity appears to them a disgraceful sign of their decadence. Yet, they continue drifting along, without ever taking any measures to stop the rot. On the contrary, the consciousness of their profligacy renders them the more passive; they apply less and less effort to halt their downward drift. “Now,” they would say to themselves, “it is too late anyway.” The disorder that engulfs them grows from day to day; they are buried under a thicket of unfulfilled duties, self reproaches, and aching fears concerning the initial effort towards order they feel to be necessary but dreadful.
We must uproot self-indulgence of every sort
This state of unfreedom is the utmost antithesis to the state of self-possession, of habitare secum. A Christian who has lapsed into this paralyzing form of self-indulgence must wage a relentless war against it. He must find out his particular inhibitions, and fight them by a