Attachment

Thursday, April 16, 2026

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Attachment

A couple of days ago I wrote about my dad. And as Margaret and I were reading, I began to remember stories from Laura and Shannon and Casey and Don and Eric and Mike and Shawn and Susan and Fred and Margaret and Bob and Ron and Connie and Larry and Scott and Garrison and Mark and Ryan and Alex and Matt … but not just the stories, also the faces of all those sons and daughters as they remembered. How their eyes turned inside themelves, or something, as they held the pictures for a moment in their minds.

On Sunday Fred asked us to notice whether we had shared stories about our family’s world, about our life together, about our moms and dads. Do we want to pass these on? Most of us do.

At the various Illinois penitentiaries we visited for years since 1980 or so, where usually I brought a guitar and sang, or a Bible and read – Mother’s Day and Father’s Day stood out above Christmas and Easter for those guys. Fred’s question opened a memory door for Margaret and me. Those holidays opened doors for them. Usually there were many memories and thoughts behind the mom door. Not so much the dad door. Many of their dads weren’t around much.

Attachment theory is all about the relationship between mom and me (again, not so much dad). Here’s a summary I found from the Cleveland Clinic of the four styles:

The Four Main Attachment Styles

• Secure Attachment: Develops from consistent, loving care. Adults with this style are comfortable with intimacy and independence, communicate openly, manage conflict well, and trust partners.
• Anxious-Preoccupied Attachment: Rooted in inconsistent care, causing high anxiety and fear of abandonment. These adults often feel insecure, “clingy,” and need constant reassurance to feel secure in relationships.
• Dismissive-Avoidant Attachment: Stems from caregivers who were distant or rejecting. Adults are highly independent, avoid emotional closeness, and prioritize self-reliance over intimacy, often viewing partner needs as needy.
• Fearful-Avoidant (Disorganized) Attachment: Often linked to trauma, this style combines high anxiety and high avoidance. These individuals crave intimacy but fear it, resulting in unpredictable behavior and difficulty regulating emotions.

As I read these psycho-semi-logical labels in the dark, in Austin, near midnight where who knows what’s happening on the downtown city streets, I remember how much God loves me, how much he is “attached” at the hip to me, and all the fears of being fearful or avoidant fall away. They are replaced by a vision I’ve had for seems like forever:

I’m a young boy in a class with our local rabbi. In Capernaum, where I was born, Jesus is a popular guy. And when we hear that Jeus is walking on the dusty road from Nazareth to see someone here, the rabbi’s eyes get wide, he puts down the scroll, claps his hands together, and shoos us off to the town square. “Don’t just sit there, Jesus is coming!”

So I jump up and run to see him. So does everyone else in town, and I can see NOTHING except their backs. But I wiggle and wriggle and get to the front, and there is Jesus, leaning against the village well.. Tired. Surrounded.

But this is the cool part. I see him, sure, but then He Sees me! He looks down and sees me. He smiles and I know he knows me. And he beckons me closer, and I put my arm, my right arm around his legs, and Jesus put his hand on my head.

And that’s the best moment in my birth-to-death life I ever expect to have. Here’s a song by Danny Daniels that would be exactly what I want to say and sing, and say and sing, again and again …

I’m in love with you

For you have called me child

I’m in love with you

For you have called me child

You reached out and touched me

You heard my lonely cry

I will praise your name forever

And give you all my life.

(Acts 5, Psalm 34, John 20, John 3)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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