I have this book and am planning on going through it with you on this “Friday is for Friends” series. Are you going to work through it a chapter a week? Thanks for your ministry.
I am looking forward to this look at acedia–or rather moving beyond acedia. For me, it is a blandness, or an “I don’t care” state that resonates out of whispers from somewhere that tell me that I “can’t do it”, or that I am “not worthy of accomplishment” thus my response is indifference, sometimes bordering on a self-destructive form of “I don’t care.”

Ryan,
Yes, probably one chp per week …

This should be a very helpful one, Scot. Thanks.

The modern response to Acedia is “let me take a break and check out my favorite blogs…”

I think depression is real and separate from acedia. But I also think acedia is different from what western culture (Christians included) often experience which is more related to what Rohlheiser calls “unbridled restlessness”. We become anxious, despondent or indifferent thru choice and sensory overload and disconnect from God, ourselves and others, unable to be truly present where we are. We are both busy and bored at the same time. Tho I have not read her book, my understanding of acedia in Christian tradition was more tied to those distractions and temptations (mostly from within) that interfere with those committed to living a whole life devoted to God vs. many of the symptoms she describes above that seem to come from being overly immersed in an ungodly culture. I also think John’s “dark night” is different still from acedia. I believe those devoted Jesus Creeders out there may encounter each of these at various times in their spiritual journey even if they never experience clinical depression.

dopderbeck,
Oh … you hit me where it hurts. Truth will out.

Seems like what Douglas Adams called the long, dark teatime of the soul:
“In the end, it was Sunday afternoons he couldn’t cope with, and that terrible listlessness that starts to set in at about 2:55 when you know you’ve taken all the baths you can usefully take that day, that however hard you stare at any given paragraph in the newspaper you will never actually read it, or use the revolutionary new pruning technique it describes, and that as you stare at the clock the hands will move relentlessly on to four o’clock, and you will enter the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.”

Kathleen Norris is an awesome writer. Poet before she wrote prose. Dakota, Cloister Walk,Amazing Grace… the short lecture published by i think Paulist press–Quotidian Mysteries, a booklet on daily work as spiritual discipline.
Few use words so gracefully.
hope to read the book when it gets to library or paperback.
thanks for lifting this one up…
grace and peace

This book is tremendous.
This book is no self-help. There is no quick-fix, there is only naming the demon and countering its frozen grip with a heart bent to love, to care, to give, to sacrifice, to forgive, to mark each one with the dignity given by God’s life-giving hand. For some whose personalities and temperaments are prone to acedia, this book is needful, maybe even life-saving. To others who do not struggle with this particular vice, it is a reminder that life is present and needs to be lived in love.
For this book, I sing highest of praise. Thank you, Kathleen. Your life is breathing life into others. Thank you for such honesty and vulnerability.

huh. I have never heard of this. wow. Never knew the word. I thought “Acedia” was 1) nameless, and 2) my own personal invisible demon that followed me around everywhere that nobody else knew about. Man, I know this little punk!
You know one of the worst things I’ve tried? Keep getting up and getting more coffee! It creates a vicious cycle where I get more fidgety and so I get more coffee…

“Acedia & Me…” rates #2 for me right behind The Cloister Walk. She mentioned acedia being ‘weariness of the soul’ and a ‘sloth of the mind’…I’ve been there.
The vague uneasiness that seems to creep into my thoughts and I ask myself ‘why am I doing this?’ Sometimes it slithers into my thoughts as listlessness, fatigue, or a low energy level. Sometimes I just don’t have the UMPH to fight it.
Finishing Norris’ book has led me to reading more on compunction and manual labor as tools for resolving acedia. Any thoughts?

Acedia…an ancient demon… « Church Remix

[...] Acedia from Friday is for Friends [...]

Here is an interview with the author:
http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/interviews/norris.asp

Dorothy Sayers takes an excellant quick look at acedia
in “Letters To a Diminished Church”. She writes, “The sixth deadly sin is named acedia or sloth. In the world it calls itself tolerance; but in hell it is called despair. It is the accomplice of the other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing and remains alive only because there is nothing it would die for. We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is a mortal sin.”