Acedia

“Life is easier than you'd think—all that is necessary is to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable.”









I read Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, the first time about a year ago. I’ve read it twice. Bouts of "helplessness, self-pity and terror" began to torment the author in high school in Honolulu, infiltrated her college years and continued into her marriage. You mean I’m not alone…?

Remember:

St. Gregory of Nyssa believes that The Lord’s Prayer is "a way to remember that the life in which we ought to be interested is daily life. … Our Lord tells us to pray for today, and so he prevents us from tormenting ourselves about tomorrow."

What also helps according to Kathleen Norris, "is a great dose of humility. Who the hell do I think I am to be so bored?"


In terms of my craft, Kathleen Norris reminds me,

"The only way to do this book," she realized, "was to bring all sides of me to it." Oh my… Of course… Still, this is easier said than done. It is downright painful. Still, when I engage with art, when beauty speaks, it speaks because the artist had the courage to pint out some truth. Isn’t this the cardinal rule of the work of creativity?

and

“Before you begin a thing, remind yourself that difficulties and delays quite impossible to foresee are ahead. If you could see them clearly, naturally you could do a great deal to get rid of them but you can't. You can only see one thing clearly and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that and cling to it through thick and thin.”