Acedia - My greatest personal concern

There are a number of things that I am weary of.  For instance, I am deeply concerned that the energy that I have for ministry will pass away as I get older.  I am concerned that any hint of creativity will pass away as I move into my 60's and beyond.  I am concerned that there will be a time for which I will not have the courage I need to do what I am called to do.  


Of all those many concerns, the concept of acedia is by far my most pressing and thought saturating.


I ran across this little bit from Spirituality for Ministry by Urban T. Holmes III.  Most of this is a direct quote, but there are some changes - I use the word minister while Holmes uses pastor/priest.   


---

The besetting sin of the desert fathers was acedia, or accidie, tellingly described as “the devil of the noonday sun.”  Acedia is spiritual boredom, an indifference to matter of religion, or simple laziness.  The ancient sin of acedia lies at the root of the minister’s refusal to heed the calling to be the instrument of spiritual growth. 

American religion is obsessed with the “warm sins” such as illicit sex and gluttony.  Because many of us are Donatists – believing that the validity of the sacrament depends upon the moral character of its minister, which was condemned as heresy long ago – we become inordinately concerned when the warm sins are committed by the ordained.  The sins that should concern us far more deeply are those that prevent the ordained from ever exercising their spiritual vocation.  These “cold sins” truly violate the mission of the minister to be a symbol, symbol-bearer, and hermeneut.  They rise not from an excess of passion, but from a fear of passion.  They are the product of a calculated apathy, sustained only by the embers of a dying soul.  

Acedia is the root sin of the clergy as spiritual guides.  Like cancer that eats away at our abandonment to the love for God and God’s creation.  It takes a number of forms, which have much in common with those of the centuries but also have their own peculiar twist in our times.

---

How does one keep from falling out of love with growing and maturing?  Acedia seems to transcend religion or tribe connection.  I have seen if have an impact with the Christian and the Agnostic and the Atheist.  I have seen acedia control the lives of the old (many of whom are just waiting to retire or die) as well as the lives of the young (many of whom spend hours playing video games or watching MTV trash).  

Life seems far too short, far too fragile and far to beautiful to be caught up in the trappings of acedia, and yet many of us (I count myself first and foremost) suffer under the oppression of acedia.  

‘I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. - Revelation 3

Gaining Perspective - By Abraham Joshua Heschel

Prayer is a perspective from which to behold, from which to respond to, the challenges we face. [Humans] in prayer do not seek to impose their will upon God; they seek to impose God's will and mercy upon themselves. Prayer is necessary to make us aware of our failures, backsliding, transgressions, sins.


Taken from Inward/Outward 


Sitting at lunch the other day, the young woman was deeply disturbed by the news she heard coming from a voice through her iPhone.  She stopped looking at her computer and set it to sleep.  She hung up the phone, her eyes watered over like slightly like one staring at a computer screen for too long.  The half eaten sandwich no longer was appealing as she stood to leave, almost forgetting her over-sized purse which now she feels she overpaid for.  Walking to the door toward her car, she makes it halfway and sits at a table outside the cafe paralyzed.


"Are you okay?" I asked.


Looking up at me with a look in her eyes as though she was looking through her relationship Rolodex to recognized who was asking.  Unable to identify any connection she replies, "My friend is dying.  I do not know what to do."  


"My name is Jason and if you do not mind me asking, what is your friend's first name?"


"Sandra."


When I I asked if it would be okay to her if I prayed for Sandra, she looked at me with a very quizzical look as though I had stopped speaking English and began speaking German.  


I am not sure why she looked puzzled when I asked, perhaps because it is a stranger making the request or maybe she does not pray or "believe in that sort of stuff."  Or maybe she has been taught that prayer is something you do to ask God to do something (such as heal someone) and that never "works".  I do not know.  


What I do know is that I understand prayer in the spirit of Heschel - I seek to impose the Mercy and Grace of God onto the human situation.  I do not pray that Sandra's illness he cured (while I hope it is), I pray for God's Grace to be imposed upon Sandra, this young woman and me.

Flights - by Judy Brown August 23, 2010

Rev. Nancy Allen came across this poem and I loved it.  Thought I would share it with the interwebs.

Flights
Yesterday,
An easy flight
For me. Not so
For him.
He was an hour
Late because a
Jar of caramel sauce
inside a suitcase, broke,
And ran out, down
The outside
Of the plane.
They didn't know
What the suspicious
Liquid was.
Was it mechanical?
A terrorist plot?
As it turned out
They should have
Called for ice cream,
Not mechanics
And the bomb squad.
So hard to know
What we are seeing,
Sometimes. Especially
When we're scared.

Sermon bit - William Willimon

"Yet I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story -- the one according to Luke not Dickens -- is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers."


"We prefer to think of ourselves as givers -- powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we -- with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities -- had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was receive it."


In this sermon Willimon imply the question to Christians, "What narrative drives your understanding of Christmas? A Christmas Carol or the Gospel?"

Click here for the entire sermon of Willimon.