Acedia and Me

Vic and I the day after our engagement (1973)


A jumble of loosely connected thoughts:

I am reading Kathleen Norris’s, Acedia and Me.  Again. 

I have marked up that book so thoroughly that it would be practically unreadable to anyone but myself. 

In discussing Truth in previous posts,  I have shared a few examples of my falling short of the mark. Believe me, I could fill up a tome with such examples, but writing, much less reading, it would  be beyond tedious. My sins are annoyingly repetitious. 

Kathleen writes, “Acedia will always take the path of least resistance.” I read somewhere that in order to grow we must firstly learn to distinguish right from wrong, and secondly recognize—on a very conscious level— that right will always be harder to embrace in times of trouble than wrong.

The path of least resistance for me is a revolving door of defensiveness, despair, fear, and petty thoughts. Where I have grown is in recognizing these demons of Acedia. I have sojourned to the point where I mostly now SEE that I am doing badly even as I am doing it. Yet, none of us truly sees all of our faults, so I try to keep in mind the grace that I am shown by others even when I don’t even know they are covering my sins with love. 

Discovering the truth about ourselves can feel an awful lot like despair. Yet, despair is Acedia’s only gift. And a lie to boot. I must hold the knowledge of myself in one hand while dancing with the other. Kathleen tells of a desert monk who wrote, “Penthos [the sorrow of repentance] without thanksgiving would be despair . . . While thanksgiving without repentance would be a presumptuous illusion.”

Thanks for dropping by. See you soon. 





  

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