Weekend Catchup- Evagrius, Acedia, and Purity of Heart
I did a lot of teaching over the weekend because I preached twice. So here are some updates.
1. From Sunday class, I continued my discussion of “functional Hinduism.” See the download link below
2. Our Sunday sermon was on Purity of Heart. I still think the basic idea of having a pure heart has to be tied to cleaning up any distraction that might keep us from truly hearing God’s word in all its fullness. As a metaphor, I mentioned the film that covers over Baby Back ribs. Here’s a video that shows how to remove it. As you watch it, think about pulling off the membrane that keeps you from being attentive to God. Do you have purity of heart? Is your will responsive to His will?
3. On Sunday evening, I talked about Boredom and how it can overwhelm our soul. An old writer that I mentioned is Evagrius of Ponticus. His description of the demon acedia (a-sEE-dEE-uh) seems really profound to me. Below is his most famous description of acedia:
The demon of acedia—also called the noonday demon——is the one that causes the most serious trouble of all. He presses his attack upon the monk about the fourth hour and besieges the soul until the eighth hour. First of all he makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all, and that the day is fifty hours long. Then he constrains the monk to look constantly out the windows, to walk outside the cell, to gaze carefully at the sun to determine how far it stands from the ninth hour [or lunchtime], to look this way and now that to see if perhaps [one of the brethren appears from his cell]. Then too he instills in the heart of the monk a hatred for the place, a hatred for his very life itself, a hatred for manual labor. He leads him to reflect that charity has departed from among the brethren, that there is no one to give encouragement. Should there be someone at this period who happens to offend him in some way or other, this too the demon uses to contribute further to his hatred. This demon drives him along to desire other sites where he can more easily procure life’s necessities more readily find work and make a real success of himself. He goes on to suggest that, after all, it is not the place that is the basis of pleasing the Lord. God is to be adored everywhere. He joins to these reflections the memory of his dear ones and of his former way of life. He depicts life stretching out for a long period of time, and brings before the mind’s eye the toil of the ascetic struggle and, as the saying has it, leaves no leaf unturned to induce the monk to forsake his cell and drop out of the fight. No other demon follows close upon the heels of this one (when he is defeated) but only a state of deep peace and inexpressible joy arise out of this struggle.
—Evagrius Ponticus (345–399), The Praktikos
For more on this demon and its relevance in our life, you might look at Chris Smith’s review of Kathleen Norris’ Acedia and Mesert Christians (2008). I have not read this book, but I have seen several great comments on it so it’s probably worth your time. Norris has written about her book and posted several other quotations from Evagrius. The best book that I have on Evagius is William Harmless’ Desert Christians (Oxford Press, 2004). That’s the book that I used to quote the above piece on Sunday night.
