Little By Little

Acedia, Hieronymus Wierix, 16th Century

In 1986 the great twentieth century American novelist Walker Percy, when asked what worried him most about the condition of the world, answered with this:   

Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom. . . gradually subside into decay through default and be defeated . . . from within by weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed, and in the end helplessness before its great problems.

He then adds: “The West [is] losing [its way] by spiritual acedia.”

Acedia was the terrifying condition so feared in ancient monastic communities, where passionately devoted monks and nuns were struck by what they called the “noonday demon.” The monks knew they might get up in the morning charged and ready to go with their spiritual practices but by the middle of the day grow weary, tired, bored, listless. It was a serious matter when their spiritual life of prayer and reading and worship had somehow gone flat. Acedia was a threat to them personally but as well to the life of the community.  

What do we do when our lives go flat? Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, in his book Where God Happens, has been leading me through the great tradition of the Desert Fathers and Mothers. This is the movement that caught fire in the deserts of Egypt in the third and fourth centuries. These seekers departed from Rome as it began to unravel from within. They became monks, ascetics, hermits. They felt holiness could only be found in a life of prayer.

But they were constantly on guard for acedia. One young monk, for example, came to his elder and asked: “When shall I be able to be holy in the way I used to be before?” The brother was inflicted with spiritual lassitude and apathy. The elder knew the dangers. Keep praying, he said, but also, just carry on with the little tasks of your day. “And so by God’s help,” says this ancient text, the brother “went on little by little, until he had indeed become what he was meant to become.” Another elder says: Just keep on a little bit at a time, and “God by his grace will reestablish you.”  

There is something new here for me. When things go flat, as then often do, just carry on little by little. When we are besieged by weariness, boredom, cynicism, just carry on with the little things. Start there.

Recently I’ve been reading in the mornings the amazing poetry of Billy Collins. Unlike so much poetry being written these days, it’s exhilarating to begin a Collins’ poem just noticing something in the room where he is writing, or some flicker of movement out the window, some sight or sound on a walk around the lake. It’s as if he seeks to live as those monks, the ones who were counseled just to keep on with the little things. Listen to this:    

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,

I fell in love with a wren

and later in the day with a mouse

the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

Fell in love? Well, yes, just notice everything you encounter on this ordinary morning because it might turn extraordinary. Just keep watching, looking, paying attention. Just keep quiet before what you hear. At the end of the poem, the poet ends up falling in love again:

After I carried the mouse by the tail to a pile of leaves in the woods

I found myself standing at the bathroom sink

gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,

so at home in its pale green soap dish.

I could feel myself falling again

as I felt its turning in my wet hands

and caught the scent of lavender and stone.

Could this be the beginning of renewal for the spiritual flatness we sometimes feel? It seems to fit the counsel of the elders in the desert. Let yourself fall in love with the life God has given you for this day, this moment, ordinary as it may seem. Just return to your prayer chair. Sit in silence for a while longer. Read some more. Just do the little things, like washing your hands. Wait for that scent of lavender.

If this great tradition of teaching from the desert is on target, and I think it is, it is in this openness to the current moment where God will re-spark our attention to his presence. In the little things. In this way we might find the holiness we knew before.