num_pages: 334
description: Kathleen Norris had written several books yet she couldnt drag herself out of bed in the morning couldnt summon the energy for daily tasks. Even as she struggled Norris recognized her familiar battle with acedia. She had discovered the word in an early Church text when she was in her thirties. Having endured times of deep soul-weariness since she was a teenager she immediately recognized that this passage described her affliction: sinking into a state of being unable to care. Fascinated by this noonday demon so familiar to those in the early and medieval Church Norris read intensively and knew she must restore this forgotten but utterly relevant and important concept to the modern worlds vernacular. Like Norriss The Cloister Walk Acedia &amp; me is part memoir and part meditation. As in her Amazing Grace here Norris explicates and demystifies a spiritual concept exploring acedia through the geography of her life as a writer; her marriage and the challenges of commitment in the midst of grave illness; and her keen interest in the monastic tradition. Unlike her earlier books this one features a poignant narrative throughout of Norriss and her husbands bouts with acedia and its clinical cousin depression. Moreover her analysis of acedia reveals its burden not just on individuals but on whole societies and that the restless boredom frantic escapism commitment phobia and enervating despair that we struggle with today are the ancient demon of acedia in modern dress.
language: English
title: Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
publisher: Riverhead