Kathleen Norris: Acedia

Notes on Kathleen Norris' "Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life."

I've always felt a spiritual kinship with Kathleen Norris. I haven't enjoyed all she's written, but more often than not, I feel I understand "where she's coming from." it was serendipity and coincidence that I came across her most recent book. Coincident because I had just written a friend my general apathy with life, and serendipity with regard to how I found it. On my annual trip back to North Dakota, I stopped in at the best bookstore in the tri-state area, and the only bookstore I visit where I will pay full price for a book, and imjust happened to see it.

The "Online Medical Dictionary" defines acedia as "a mental syndrome, the chief features of which are listlessness, carelessness, apathy, and melancholiac." I admit to three of those four conditions.

It will be interesting to read what Ms Norris has to say about acedia.

Ms Norris dedicates this memoir to her husband, "David Joseph Dwyer, 1946-2003."

From the back cover: "Acclaimed writer Kathleen Norris brilliantly demystifies the forgotten but utterly relevant concept of acedia, a term that has often been understood as spiritual sloth, signifying the serious malady of being able to care. Norris resurrects a discussion of acedia through the geography of her own 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."