In a previous DM, I cited Gus Speth, the environmental lawyer who came to realize that the crisis of climate change is not so much seas warming and rising, and ice melting, and wildfires and hurricanes raging, and species dying—it was more about people being apathetic.
Gus Speth came to realize that the cause behind so much suffering of Mother Earth and her children, humans included, is humanity’s stuckness in apathy. The traditional word for apathy is acedia, the capital sin which we have mistranslated as “sloth” but which names much more than that. It is about not caring and being selfish and choosing to remain asleep and about “lack of energy to begin new things” (Aquinas) and about couchpotatoitis (couch-potato-itis).
One might say that the opposite of acedia is: Love. Passion. A passion that can lead to compassion. Getting out of our couches and away from our addictions of any kind that interfere with our deepest feelings of joy and wonder, reverence and gratitude, which give us the energy to carry on. Acedia is the opposite of the Via Positiva.
With this in mind, and so much of the news being hard and weighing heavily on us daily, it is useful to focus more on acedia and its cures. For this reason, we will do this in some upcoming DM’s.
Acedia feeds on despair, and despair feeds on acedia. Thomas Aquinas says that despair “tears charity out by its roots,” and that when we are stuck in despair, all kinds of wickedness arises because nothing seems valuable to us anymore. I wonder if a lot of the negative energy being spread on the news and social media today is born of despair.
Adapted from Matthew Fox, “Misdirected Love in the First Chakra: Acedia,” in Matthew Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society, pp. 190ff.
Banner Image: This pencil-and-paper study by Dante Gabriel Rossetti preceded his oil-and-canvas masterpiece, “Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice” (circa 1871). Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s poem “La Vita Nuova” (circa 1294), Rossetti painted an angel in crimson raiment clasping Dante’s hand, leading Dante to the deathbed of his unrequited love, Beatrice Portinari. Via Wikimedia Commons.
For the transcript of Matthew’s video teaching, click HERE.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you think it’s possible that a lot of the crazy hate-driven politics and media of our time is grounded in despair? If so, what might the cures be to move us to a better place?
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8 thoughts on “Moving Beyond Apathy, Acedia & Selfishness”
What I attribute as part of the root cause of humanities cultural apathy and acedia, is a sense of powerlessness, due to centuries of the misuse and abuse of power through patriarchal rule, and the oppression and suppression of this imbalance of the masculine towards the feminine aspects of our true nature.
What has been lost through all of this has been a real sensing, a true knowing, a faith, hope and trust in the power of love and the potential of this, to be the necessary response to literally everything that humanity is facing in these challenging times. Humanity, time and time again rejects and denies listening and responding, in faith, hope and trust in the truth and reality of the power of love, and instead has chosen a false illusion of power, replacing gratitude with greed.
Salvation will only come about if humanity turns away from this illusion
and turns towards learning how to develope a listening responsive heart to the essence, presence and the nature of love… through the resurrection of the Mother Heart of God’s Holy Spirit, that feminine aspect inherent within…. whom knows the wisdom ways of listening to this power of love and the truth of labouring, bearing forth and birthing this response, which desires and longs to lead humanity into co-creatively manifesting this potential new reality.
Jeanette, “Salvation will only come about if humanity turns away from this illusion”–and what is this illusion? The sense of powerlessness, due to centuries of the misuse and abuse of power through patriarchal rule, and the oppression and suppression of this imbalance of the masculine towards the feminine aspects of our true nature.” But what is the solution? It is to turning “turns towards learning how to develop a listening responsive heart to the essence, presence and the nature of love…” Thank you!
I echoe Richard Rohrs words… “God’s love enables and energizes us to change!”
We all have the capacity to do even just the smallest acts that when combined with similar from others become a great force for good and healing. }:- a.m.
Perhaps gratitude and hope are the antidote for apathy and despair? May we practice both of the former in the midst of the struggle. }:- a.m. 🙏🏽♥️
There was a mistake in my video today. I referenced the story about the ball in the palm of the hand being Hildegard’s vision but in fact it was Julian on Norwich’s vision. Sorry, I misspoke. It was she who lived in the same century as Dante, not Hildegard. The second quote I attributed to Hildegard including the “house of the heart” was really hers however.
With Richard, I say Thank You to Jeanette for reminding us of the Presence of the Divine Feminine Spirit of Love within, through, among, around us…. We need to be contemplatively open to this Loving-Creative-Oneness Spirit in our daily lives with our sisters and brothers and all of Creation. God-Dess is All in All….
If we don’t care about other people, why should they care about us? We should always be care-full.