Reflecting on Fr. Dubay's 9 harmful side effects of attachment to created things, I linger on a couple of images. The first is one of not seeing the forest for the trees. This is one way of helping me to understand why God would create everything and pronounce it good, but then want us to detach ourselves from these things.
In this image, God is the forest. We see the trees around us and we see how good and beautiful they are, but we have a sense that if we can only get out of these woods we'll have a better view. It is true. If we come into a clearing, we see at last the woods in full.
The beauty of the trees, the beauty of creation all around us, is a harmony of signposts proclaiming, "Behold: beauty, goodness, elegance. They point to a Designer. Seek Him."
We are surrounded by signs. They all point one way. After gawking at their glory and harmony, we ought to move along and follow the signs.
God is love. We can begin to know love from relationships with those closest to us here on earth. And we can begin to understand that true love has one pure source: Love Himself. We should seek Love by following love - not merely seek love itself.
Returning to this image of the forest, I think once we see the forest from a distance we see there is a mountain beyond. The mountain is beautiful and it beckons us to climb. Climbing to the top, we seek to see all, not just the mountain. Just as we leave the trees to see the forest, we leave the wide view of the mountain before us, from the bottom, to reach the summit and a view of all.
The second image that comes to mind is that of a wallet size photo of a beautiful woman (or if you are a woman, a photo of a gorgeous man). The most beautiful or most gorgeous ever. Beyond compare. Staring at such a photo, we may become transfixed by the wonderful mystery of the person in the photo.
But this is not where we should stop. We should pry our eyes away and get our feet moving in order to seek this person. Just so with God. Beholding the beauty of creation, we must proceed to look away from it in order to seek its author and come face to face with Beauty Himself. We must not cling to the picture but seek the person in the picture. We must not cling to created things but seek God alone.
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