On Acedia and Beginning Again

"You don't have acedia, because you still care. If you care enough to read a book about acedia, you don't have acedia." --A friend

I'm reading the book Acedia and Me, by Kathleen Norris. I've been meaning to read more of Norris' writing ever since I read Cloister Walk in college. Norris is a protestant writer who fell in love with Catholic liturgy and became a Benedictine Oblate. I love her because she reminds me that I am not alone in the world. When I am feeling too lazy to write, or am having trouble explaining why something moves me, reading spiritual memoir is incredibly helpful. It's necessary. The spiritual writings of women like Norris, women like Anne Lamott or Lauren Winner, give voice to my internal spiritual and emotional tensions, serving as spiritual direction when I have lost my way.

In her book, Norris defines acedia as a lack of care: a spiritual and psychological malaise that combines the worst bits of sloth and depression. I began reading this book several months ago, but put it down because the heavy tone of the book and its correspondence to my own life was too much for me to carry. Also, I was visiting Chicago at the end of winter; the season itself had succumbed to acedia. But I have taken the book up again this fall, because the topic still spoke to me. I am nearly done with it now, in the final chapter, and I am so glad to have walked with Norris thus far. She knows the things I ought to know. She knows that constant meditation on the Psalms is deep, good, sweet food for the soul. And she is incredibly gracious with herself. I mean, unbelievably. And that same graciousness has unexpectedly encouraged my Christian walk more than anything else has in a long, long time.

I have a tendency to see God as an irritated, disapproving, wrathful taskmaster, as a person waiting for me to make mistakes so he can fall out of love with me. But when I speak of these anxieties with others, with people who have walked with God more closely than I, I always get the same response: "You don't have to try so hard."

Norris quotes Evagrius, and many others who have written and lived in the monastic tradition. Have I ever mentioned that the very word monasticism draws me in with an irrepressible force? It does. Somehow, on some level, I am a monastic. It's my nature. Anyway, there is one section where she quotes an elder monk speaking to a brother on the nature of life. He says, "Brother, the monastic life is this: I rise up, and I fall down, I rise up, and I fall down, I rise up, and I fall down." 

This is an incredibly helpful statement, and it relates to Calvin's doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. Sometimes I struggle with understanding how I can lose so much ground in an area of my life that I had previously excelled in. I used to be so good at monasticism! I used to carry around a book of common prayer, and illustrate miniature manuscripts of the Psalms to hang on my walls to meditate on throughout the day. I used to shun television because I wanted only holy thoughts to be stuck in my head, and it worked, and it was well with my soul. But I have almost forgotten how to live this way, and I only sort of care.

But, Norris reminds me, the Christian life is all rising and falling. But the life of the faithful one, the one to whom Christ offers a white robe, the one who endures, is the one who continues to rise and fall. The faithful life is one which is full of new beginnings. The faithful person is one who does not give way to acedia after falling yet again into an old vice. The faithful person continually begins again. This is how I want to think of my life, and this is what I mean when I say that Norris is unbelievably, incredibly gracious. She can accept her own humanity. Isn't that beautiful?

In other news, Norris also brought to my consciousness the idea that I am not immortal. I mean, I am going to live in heaven forever with God, but first, I will die. This is actually a very refreshing thought, because it is easy for me to become discouraged in what Norris calls the "endless cycle of now," that I envision as my future. The thought that time is not an unlimited resource is difficult for me to believe, but accepting this truth is essential if I want to live free of acedia. If time is limited, then it is precious. And if time is precious, then it actually does matter how I spend it. I am re-resolving to live faithfully. Therefore I will feed on the Psalms, I will write daily, and I will always begin again.

The "cure" for acedia, as I see it, apart from therapeutic and spiritual intervention, is faithfulness. Faithfulness is just another term for beginning again. The faithful person joyfully seeks the monochromatic repetition of each day, knowing that it is in these hopelessly boring rituals that faithfulness is wrought in the soul. So I'll leave you, dear reader, with this prayer, which Norris quoted in her book:

This is another d.ay, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.

Five Hundred a Year

I need to write. How many times have I said this, over and over, to you, dear Reader, and to myself? But I will say it again: I need to write. Today, I need to write because I feel compelled to do so. Because I am able and because I am free to do so. Last night, I read Virginia Woolf’s correct and beautifully crafted essay “A Room of One’s Own”. I read it because it caught my eye at the library on Friday, while I was laying in supplies for a Reading Party. The only Virginia Woolf I’d read before was the brief “A Mark on the Wall” in a Brit Lit Survey class in college. I like her, thus far, though I’ve not yet given her fiction a chance. We shall see. . .

I want to tell you that “A Room of One’s Own” fits perfectly, perfectly, into our discussion of voice this year. Woolf boils the whole subject of women’s writing into 2 points: to write, one must have five hundred a year and a room of one’s own. Reading Woolf renewed my growing conviction of the great difference opportunity can make in the lives of separate persons.

 These words—king, beggar, wife, husband, rich, impoverished, educated, illiterate—merely describe opportunities given or denied, they do not speak of innate qualities or potentialities. I want to highlight this idea of opportunity because I feel that it is an essential component in finding one’s voice. To have a voice, sorry, I should say, to use one’s voice, one must have the opportunity to do so. 

Everyone has a voice, but not everyone receives the tools to develop it, to give it form and meaning in language's soft vowels and scraping consonants. Those who are seldom heard--the poor, the marginalized, the illiterate, and the oppressed--have lacked opportunity, but are not voiceless. As Americans, we wonder why children in Asia tend to be better at math. Is it because American children are by nature stupid and slovenly? Are they less intelligent, or just more inclined to the arts? No. It is because children in Asia are given the opportunities necessary for excellence in numbers. We ask why, in America, white children in wealthy families are more likely to be successful than the ethnic inhabitants of inner cities. It's because of opportunity. Wealthy children tend to receive the opportunity of a better education, and are therefore more likely to find, and use, their own voices.

Woolf notes how difficult it is for a woman to write while acknowledging that her predecessors—her mothers and grandmothers—spent their lives crying out in child bed and otherwise living as mute ornaments to their husbands’ glory. Woman, Woolf notes, lacks the strong, certain tapestry of letters that man has claimed as part of his rightful dominion over the world. She cannot look back on thousands of years, reciting genealogies of female poets and playwrights. She instead looks back on a liturgy of housekeepers, servants, slaves, and sexual objects—possessions prized or disdained. Woman writing must, in hearing her own voice, recognize the silence of her sisters throughout time and space.

Because I have not been forced into one kind of life, and because I am not even among those who fought for the opportunity to speak, I get to be the Woman writing. I am able to use my voice, and I know what it sounds like. 

I am blessed. This is simply another way of saying that I have been given the opportunity to use my voice. 

Let's summarize. We have seen that to use one's voice one must first be cleansed of iniquity, otherwise all that one speaks is filth in the eyes of God. And to use one's voice, one must have a private space, and five hundred a year.

Because I Need to Write More Book Reviews, Silly

Sometime soon, I'll start writing reviews on this blog, it's the only responsible thing to do. Goodness, my best intentions turn to dust so quickly!

http://theprettylibrarian.com/wp/2011/04/book-jane-eyre/

http://theprettylibrarian.com/wp/2011/07/book-gods-grandeur-and-other-poems/

A Living, Rushing Wind: On Creativity

Even in California, it's springtime. Birds are singing from the depths of their quick-beating, tiny bird hearts.

I'm re-reading Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water, and I'm discovering reality again. Why do I, a creative person, produce so little? Why isn't all of my free time given to writing diligently, like I ought to do? It's because I often choose to consume rather than to create.

Every day, every moment, I have to choose between consumption and creativity. I rarely choose creativity. In this materialistic world, it's really, really easy to waste your life consuming things instead of creating them.

When a person creates they are giving life, adding cosmos/truth/beauty to the world. When a person consumes they are using up resources--killing and destroying--ushering in a state of chaos. Cooking, reading, writing, loving, praying, worshiping--these create. Shopping, eating, Facebook, watching The Office, hating--these consume.

 Facebook and shopping are not evil, but they take away from the world. I am a consumer of life. Most of my existence has been spent taking.

Perhaps it's a question of balance. Consuming is all right, some forms of it are all right, if most of my life is spent creating. 

I think creativity is a way--a quite natural and simple way--to give to the world. The problem is that creativity is often difficult, exhausting, and frustrating, while consumption is easy and entertaining.

But, I would be a life-giver.

Creating is life giving, and holy, because it is an aspect of God's own Self. God benevolently gives. He lives. He creates life. If we are to reflect his nature, we too must create generously. Creation is an act of worship because to create is to imitate God's nature, and what is more worshipful than living in imitation of the One you adore?

It is much, much easier to consume when I come home tired at the end of a long day. To create I must be ready and attentive. It's hard to push past all of the noise and movement until I reach that still place, the still point, where creativity comes like a rushing wind.


Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things, and give me life in your ways.

Autumn's Waif

Update.

My life is the same. As you may have already noticed, this is a post for the post's sake. The last month has been full of back to school things, 7 new roommates, a new house, grad school plans, a new job, and of course the loveliest weather change of the year. Today I am wearing a sundress, cardigan, and tights. Because the sky is that tranquil grey-blue---the kind that makes me want to listen to jazz and drink chai green tea and cuddle and eat squash and bake pies. I love fall. What am I thinking about just now? I wish I knew. I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately, life is really full this year, and I don't like fullness. I do college by living like a desert hermit, and so having things like a house and roommates who are kindred spirits transforms all of my academic fervor into more of a feverish hallucination. Right now, I'm mostly just tired of having to study things I don't care about. I don't want to read Cicero, and think about rhetoric. I want to write a play, and bake a pie, and wear cute sweaters and crazy tights and tramp about in wellingtons and mind my own business and step on crimson leaves and be glad. Just that deep, simple merriment that comes from the comforts of the material world in the year's grey-beard time. I want to take communion from a golden chalice at an Anglican church, I want to turn into the spirit of autumn, and participate in a glorious Bacchic frenzy.

Oh, to be the spirit of an autumn wind!

I want to read poetry, and write poetry, and hear poetry, and snap my fingers. I want to waltz across my wooden floor. I want to paint with gold and red and blue! Fall is full of surprises and secrets. Perhaps because Christmas is at the end of it. Autumn, the season of promise--what a fullness of life is fall! Fall is not the decay and corruption of old age, it is the maturity, the fullness of a life well lived. It is a red rose fully bloomed, just before the petals start to wilt. And if death is what comes after, then death itself is a beautiful gift, because it's all wrapped up in a smoky, cloudy haze of awful mystery, and I love it.

Everything is richer now; truer, bolder. Not happy, but joyful. Not pretty, but beautiful. Not well brought up, but well preserved. Regal. Mature. Real.

How full is fall!

This really can't be what I had in mind. . .

I'd sworn off blogging, for ever and ever. So much for constancy.