Acedia and Me

Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life - Kathleen Norris

The Wisdom of the Desert - translated, edited, and introduced by Thomas Merton

What's the angle?
   Norris is a poet and writer, and dedicated student of the Christian monastic tradition. She investigates the role of "acedia" - some combination of despondency, listlessness, depression, restlessness, and irritability - in monastic literature, culture, and her own life.

What is depression?
   For Norris, depression is best understood in a modern sense, either as a disorder or illness: long periods of low mood, low energy, lack of motivation, worthlessness, and hopelessness potentially treatable with therapy and medication.
   She is very aware of the overlap in descriptions of "acedia" and "depression," not to mention "melancholia" and "ennui." But early on in the book she tries to distinguish them ethically: depression is not a temptation or vice, it's not something that you can turn from [repent] or refrain from; acedia on the other hand is the temptation to follow a well-worn trail of irritable and depressive thinking and behavior.
    Perhaps, if we take a cognitive-behavioral and desert wisdom approach, we could say that acedia is one possible cause or contributor to depression. And/or we could say that acedia is an especially tempting and destructive vice for people who are depressed or depressive.

How do you treat depression?
   In recounting her husband's many battles with depression, as well as her own depressive episodes, Norris recommends seeking help from many different angles. Talk therapies, medication, hospitalization, prayer, exercise, writing, rest, retreats, good relationships. The only type of treatment she's clearly against is heavy drinking.
   As for acedia - prayer, discernment, and faithfulness are the main remedies. 
- Prayer. First and last of all, keep praying. Ask God for help, or at least tell God that you feel despondent, disbelieving, frustrated, if you're tired of life and you've had enough of all this junk. 
- Discernment. If you can discern acedia in your thoughts and actions, then name it, or "confess" it. Ask for mercy and deliverance. This will help you resist and turn from it toward God. 
- Faithfulness. Stick to your calling. Keep your little "rule" as best you can. Be patient with God, with yourself, with those around you. Be diligent with your basic tasks and responsibilities. Be gentle.

The promise of acedia
   For the most part, the books I've read all agree on the basic contours of depression - weeks or months of low or bad mood, low energy, low motivation, sleep disturbances, suicidal thoughts or actions, hopelessness, worthlessness. The authors have agreed that there are a variety of safe treatment options but that it's not clear what works or not, or why it works or not. They have all agreed to some basic factors that make you more susceptible to depression: neurotic or anxious personality, negative experiences - especially in childhood, depression in the family, chronic pain or other chronic conditions.
   The sticky interlocking questions have been:

• Is depression an illness, a disorder, and/or simply a basic human behavior-feeling?
• Is there a main biological cause of depression?
• What's the best way to treat depression?
• To what extent, or in what way is depression behavioral or ethical?

   I think including acedia in my thinking about depression can help me to address the fourth question without heaps of shame and guilt.



notes

• the boundaries between depression and acedia are notoriously fluid; at the risk of oversimplifying, I would suggest that while depression is an illness treatable by counseling and medication, acedia is a vice that is best countered by spiritual practice and the discipline of prayer
• under these circumstances [monasticism] acedia's assault is not merely an occupational hazard - it is a given. It is also an interfaith phenomenon.
• a parody of leisure [restless tedium, lazy fidgety frustrated pointless]
• "aversion of the appetite from its own good" Wenzel
• despair - when God appealing but impossible; acedia - when God possible but unappealing
• anger as the seed of compassion
• both a sin and an ailment...Aquinas recommends a hot bath, a glass of wine, and a good night's sleep
• history suggests that we tend to be overconfident about what we know, and that we never know as much as we think we do
• acedia can flatten any place into a stark desert landscape and make hope a mirage
• "whose specialty it is to take a dislike to staying in one place"
• monastic wisdom insists that when we are most tempted to feel bored, apathetic, and despondent over the meaninglessness of life we are on the verge of discovering our true self in relation to God
• acedia's genius is to seize us precisely where our hope lies
• Reinhard Kuhn, The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature
• Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
• All the miracles are in the past, the people see only danger ahead
• This is truth as the devil tells it, using the lure of being free to be myself to enslave me in a sterile narcissism
• If the Church has made too much of the sin of pride, which seduces us into thinking too highly of ourselves, it has not made enough of the sin of sloth, which allows us to settle for being less that we can be, both as individuals and as society
• Godly grief vs worldy grief, "that comes from the enemy, full of mockery, which some call accidie. this spirit must be cast out, mainly by prayer and psalmody" Amma Syncletica
• "What God does in us always produces humility" Ruth Burrows
• conversatio morum
• acedia like "hitting the wall"
• one step toward that blessed receptivity for "the little things" is to discern which activities foster our spiritual freedom, and which do not
• "inside us, we bore acedia's dismal smoke./ we have this black mire now to be sullen in
• a fortunate selfconsiousness awakens in sin - Henri de Lubac
• to pray at the hinges of time, at morning, noon, and night, when we might be most open to God but are also susceptible to acedia and its attendant despairs
• Jesus reminds us, however, that it is not proficiency that heals us, but faith, and faith does not traffic with success or failure
• I could not make him want to live, but I could be his companion in making a life worth living
• the touchstone of God at work is the ability to recognize that God is trying to get us to accept a state where we have no assurance within that all is well...where no clear path lies before us, where there is no way..." Ruth Burrows
• Above all, Solomon encourages us to enlarge our capacity for enjoying the good times in life and to expect that rewards will come after pain
• When I return home I will face the same old battles with restlessness, impatience, and anger, and acedia will urge me to discount my monastery retreat as a shipboard romance
• "the monk perceives in the mirror of the psalter his need for reform" Dysinger
• If acedia is a distorting mirror, we might look for a truer reflection on the soul in what Evagrius calls 'apatheia'...a blessed state of equilibrium, free from distraction or regret. I doubt I will ever know apatheia as Evagrius describes it, but no matter: just the thought of it is enough...
• ...reminds me of what the late poet William Stafford used to say about writer's block. He claimed never to have experienced it, because as soon as he felt it coming on, he lowered his standards