Acedia

One of a few books I'm currently reading is Acedia & Me by Kathleen Norris. Ms Norris is one of my favorite religious writers, and is a constant source of understanding and knowledge for me. Acedia is an ancient Greek word meaning an absence or lack of care. In Latin it's 'accidie'. The Oxford dictionary has it as heedlessness, torpor, a non-caring state. Webster's as the deadly sin of sloth and spiritual torpor and apathy. An online medical dictionary lists its chief features as listlessness, carelessness, apathy, and melancholia. It was first written about by a monk, Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) in a work called "The Praktikos". It's a really complex idea, and warranted a book, so here I just want to introduce you to the concept. Evagrius called it a demon, the noonday demon that attacks in the afternoon. What it does is distract from prayer and duties, and generates a hatred for place and time. It creates a desire to be elsewhere, to be doing something else. For the monk, it distracts from entering into a deeper relationship with God. Evagrius writes: "when he reads…yawns plenty and easily falls into sleep. He rubs his eyes and stretches his arms. His eyes wander from the book. He stares at the wall and then goes back to his reading for a little. He then wastes his time hanging on to the end of words, counts the pages, ascertains how the book is made, finds fault with the writing and the design. Finally he just shuts it and uses it as a pillow. Then he falls into a sleep not too deep, because hunger wakes his soul up and he begins to concern himself with that." Don't we do that? Have something important to do, but find ourselves cleaning something, running to the store, napping, daydreaming, turning on the TV and going into an unthinking passive state for hours? Kathleen Norris points out that from the perspective of Christian theology; acedia is understood as the rejection of the divine; that because we are made in God's image we're fleeing from a relationship with a loving God, and so running away too from our authentic selves. I remember in a sermon by Pastor Jack Hayford, he said one night he sat with the remote, channel surfing and a couple hours had passed. When he realized this, he was horrified, and dropped to his knees and asked for forgiveness for wasting God's precious gift of life and time.