“Woody Guthrie came to his spirituality naturally. He wrestled with it, fought it, teased it, accepted it, loved and hated it. It was general and also personal. Ultimately, it was the discovery of his own self and how it fit his perceived version of reality that was important to him: his truth. He assumed that the uncovering of truth, and the struggles to do so were not that much different than the struggles everyone had to deal with. Not only in his time, but for all time. People are people.
“When I was very young, I remember an evening when my father chose to sleep on the floor instead of a bed. I asked him why. He told me he didn’t want to get soft. He wanted to remain detached from comfort so he could come and go without distraction. From his friends and peers, I heard stories of him getting a new car, or guitar, or something of value, only to give it away when it ran out of gas or needed new strings. He had very clearly learned the first lesson of what we identify in spiritual life as detachment. The same was true in his relationships (much to the chagrin of family relatives, and co-workers). He had learned from a very young age that attachment to things, people, or places would only lead to the burden of sorrow. He learned the hard way that the loss of attachments didn’t come about as a chosen spiritual exercise, but as his experiential reality. He learned he could enjoy almost anything without needing to possess everything.”
