Detachment, for Merton, does not mean shirking one’s responsibilities. Rather, it is a radical stance in the world that makes it possible to move unafraid into the center of evil and not be destroyed by it. If you claim nothing as your own, including your own life, you can expose the illusion of control and the false basis of war and violence by refusing any compromise with evil. Thus the self-emptied person is the true revolutionary in the world. How might we stand aside from all our demands and desires in this age of consumerism and militarism and seek peace within—peace for our immediate
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