Full name: Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life

Author: Kathleen Norris Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Memoirs, Non Fiction, Religion, Christianity Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9781594489969 9781594484384 1594489963 1594484384

Kathleen Norris had written several books, yet she couldn't drag herself out of bed in the morning, couldn't 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 world's vernacular. Like Norris's The Cloister Walk, Acedia & 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 Norris's and her husband's 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." Similar books: The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber Still by Lauren F. Winner An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott Plan B by Anne Lamott Grace by Anne Lamott Faith Unraveled by Rachel Held Evans Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller Dakota by Kathleen Norris Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman Take This Bread by Sara Miles Why Religion? by Elaine Pagels Leaving Church by Barbara Brown Taylor Amazing Grace by Kathleen Norris Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert by Rosaria Champagne Butterfield The Great Good Thing by Andrew Klavan