Acedia

I'm really feeling pretty awful in my gut these days. I have been since Holy Week. Something's gnawing at me. Alas, it's not the sort of thing I can really discuss on my blog accept to say that it is spiritually fruitful to explore the origins of unpleasant feelings. These days thoughts keep coming into my head about how terribly inadequate I am in my vocation and as a person, generally. What comes into my mind are specific memories, some of events that happened decades ago, in which I felt horribly embarrassed, inadequate, or otherwise bad. Usually when these kinds of thoughts come up I can push them aside without difficulty, but the last two weeks have been different.

Bede would say that part of me is trying to push itself to the surface. He would counsel me to be hospitable, in some way, to whatever shadow stuff was trying to emerge. Easier said than done. Even if I were brave enough to "go there" with these feelings, there is the fear that this kind of shadow work would paralyze my ability to "get things done" in my pastoral role. I don't think my congregation would appreciate it much if I emotionally and physically withdrew from them for a week or even a few days. Yes, I'm sure there are many members who would be okay with that, but there are others who would either resent it or at least be confused by it. The unfortunate fact is that much of what goes on here revolves around me and my decisions, and that's part of the very definition of a "pastoral sized church."

I remember in the monastery people would often find themselves in these kinds of spaces. It was understood as something that happens in the engaged spiritual life from time to time, and so we knew how to give people room at such times. I have many fine stories of people I know and respect needing to be grumpy and withdrawn for a few days or weeks and everyone around them simply accepting that as something he or she needed to do. But I have not inherited a model of parish life that gives that kind of room to the chief.

It's also hard not to feel a bit selfish allowing the ebbs and flows of my spiritual life overflow onto the congregation--yet if people want transparency and authenticity from their spiritual leaders, then they ought to expect some of this from time to time.

Lucky for me, tomorrow and Thursday I'm on an over-night retreat with the Momentum Program at SSJD. It's what you might call a high-trust group, and there is very little that I would not share with my colleagues there. So I'm sure that will help. Yet at the end of the day this is my work to do: notice-engage-integrate. I know people that have been cycling through these kinds of states for their entire lives. Sigh.

One manifestation of the shadows poking through is "Acedia"--an old word sometimes translated as "sloth" or even "depression." Kathleen Norris gave a particular meaning to that word in her writings. Acedia, for her, is the "noon-day demon" that the Desert Fathers talked about: a feeling of spiritual paralysis difficult to overcome. The Desert Fathers (quoted in Norris) have the following to say:

Amma Syncletica said: There is a grief that is useful, and there is a grief that is destructive. The first sort consists in weeping over one's own faults and weeping over the weakness of one's neighbors, in order not to lose one's purpose, and attach oneself to the perfect good. But there is also a grief that comes from the enemy, full of mockery, which some call accidie. This spirit must be cast out, mainly by prayer and psalmody.

Yes, that's precisely what I'm talking about--a mocking grief that is not helpful. In a chapter she wrote called simply "Acedia," Kathleen Norris reflected on the way that simply showing up to church helped. Yes, yes. That seems to be one of the keys to this... simply showing up despite the noonday demon.

Anyway, I should get over this pretty soon. It's just the pastoral blues...

-t