Acedia and Me

Sometimes I encounter a book that speaks to me so forcefully that I want to urge others to read it. Such urging is not always effective. People need to choose what they read, not have others choose it. The present time may not be the right time for you to read this book. But if you think it might be, read Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life, by Kathleen Norris (Riverhead Books, Penguin, 2008).

Norris is author of several previous must reads, including The Cloister Walk, Amazing Grace, and Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. She is a poet who writes a lot of prose. She was married to a poet, the late David J. Dwyer. She is a protestant who hangs out in Benedictine monasteries. She is a thoughtful, honest Christian.

Acedia and Me seems to have been a long-term project for her, completed during and after the death of her husband in 2003. It tells you more than you might want to know about the deadly sin of acedia, sloth, uncaring, depression, despair, etc. But it is not just a negative book. It is really a book about life under the rubric of the difficulty of living life fully. Norris draws on Scripture, especially the Psalms, the writings of the desert fathers, especially Evagrius and Cassian, Kierkegaard, modern day Benedictines and Cistercians, psychology, poetry, and most of all, her own experience, especially her marriage to a brilliant agnostic Catholic poet who struggled with serious mental and physical illness.

As I read the book I often thought of particular people I know who struggle with depression, physical illness, or the burden of caring for those who are ill. I hope some of them will be encouraged to read it. It certainly encouraged me.