Combatting Restlessness

 

Unfamiliar with Acedia? Even if you are, I expect you've suffered from it. It's not a medical condition! You can learn more about it, and how to counteract it in this week's video blog post.

Something to Live For

Our life. . . provokes us with the evidence that it must have meaning. . . our purpose in life is to discover this meaning, and live according to it. We have, therefore, something to live for. The process of living, of growing up, and becoming a person, is precisely the gradually increasing awareness of what that something is.                                                                                            

                                                                                                    Thomas Merton

 Something to live for. I wonder how that something changes for us over time. How often do we consciously think about it in our daily round of life? Maybe the phrase only pops into our consciousness when we are shaken awake by some struggle.

 Or maybe it is a gradually increasing awareness, as Merton says, that happens in the ordinariness of life. We might think about what it is we live for from time to time—as we turn the calendar page to a new year, as we approach a milestone birthday, or when we experience a sense of restlessness with life as it currently is for us. We may wonder what it is that we are living for at such times. If we do think about what we are living for, then a follow up question is called for: What am I doing that moves me toward meaning in my life?

 It is easy to be distracted from questions about meaning and what we live for by the thrum of daily news, activities, and a thousand (or even ten) requests for assistance—good things, but must we say yes to every one of them? We are moving, always moving, it seems, but toward what goal? We have filled the hours of yet another day, but with what? At the end of the day, in the purely literal meaning of that phrase, are we any closer to awareness of what we are living for, or moving toward meaning?

 Stephen Covey, in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, speaks of getting caught up in “the thick of thin things.” As Lent approaches, I encourage you to walk with Jesus through this season, to see how he was aware of the meaning of his life, and how he lived according to it. He had something to live for, and he did. To reflect on the purposefulness with which he approached life can move us to clear away the clutter of “thin things” and focus on what it is that gives our lives meaning. What is it that you are living for?

 

Restlessness (aka Acedia)

Restlessness is not unique to us in the midst of a pandemic. It's been around a long time, and we can learn how to combat it from early church leaders.

The Threat of Silence

Many people I know have a difficult time practicing silence and stillness. They’ve bought into the myth of our Western culture that we are what we produce, that our worth is based on our busyness. Sadly, I see many in the Church who do not value silence, some who even laugh at it as if it is trivial, silly or nonessential to one’s spiritual growth. Yet I have seen some of these same people anxious, reactive and rootless, changing like a chameleon to please whatever audience offers them approval.

We tend to dismiss what we do not understand. It’s part of the reactive nature of our culture. One does not need to look far to see that this is true in this political season. But such dismissing happens within religious communities just as much as it does in politics.

Take a look at this pointed quote about silence from Joan Chittister:

Those who cringe from silence see it like the plague, fearful of its weight, cautious of its emptiness and the shock that comes with its revelations. The heaviness and emptiness we feared give way very quickly to turmoil and internal pressure for change. Silence enables us to hear the cacophony inside ourselves. Being alone with ourselves makes for a demanding presence We find very quickly that either we must change or we shall surely crumble under the weight of our own dissatisfaction with ourselves, under the awareness of what we could be but are not, under the impulse of what we want to be but have failed to become. Under the din is the raw material of the soul.

When we set out to practice silence, we soon discover that what is within us is disordered. We find that we begin to question things we had once accepted as absolute. When we get uncomfortable with the way that silence works like a spotlight into our soul, our reactive nature causes us to want to run away from the silence back into the comfortable environment of distraction and back into the moral codes we substitute for discipleship.

Without a regular practice of silence, one soon runs up against a wall that prohibits any further spiritual growth. Such a person is like a child who continues to play in a sandbox when just over the bluff is the beach and an entire ocean. We miss the immense joy of freedom because we choose to stay confined in a small, constrictive space.

The discipline of silence is essential to spiritual maturity and wisdom. The way forward is not easy and is best done with a wise spiritual guide, one who has been where you want to go. But the journey, though difficult, is the way to live a life of freedom, detachment and grace. 

Restlessness vs. Persistence

We live in a culture that seeks to keep us in a constant state of excitement. When things stay the same, we lose interest in them. We are not always willing to hang with things for the long haul. Our short attention spans numb us to the sometimes long, slow, seemingly unchanging circumstances of life.

We grow impatient with slow recovery from illness or surgery. We want those who have experienced loss to “get over it” and get on with life. We grow disinterested when asked to pray for people and we see no change in their circumstances.

We bore easily. Familiar prayers are often said without conscious awareness of the words spoken. Do we really want just our daily bread? Most of us are not content with simply enough for today—we want the whole loaf. We want excess, more than what we need. Yet we pray for just enough every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.

We see catastrophic events in the media and we are riveted by their unfolding—for a short period of time. Then we lose interest and shift our attention to something newer and fresher and more sensational. When’s the last time you gave a thought to those affected by Hurricane Katrina? And yet, how many people are continuing to struggle with the changes wrought by that storm almost ten years later?

Even names on a prayer list lose our attention. It is easy for us to forget that behind every name, there is a person, a family, a life, an oftentimes long journey of uncertainty and woundedness. Compassionate care for others requires a commitment to attentiveness.

The desert fathers and mothers recognized the danger of acedia, which is a restless boredom. Evagrius Ponticus describes acedia as making “the day seem fifty hours long.” One of the ways to combat acedia is to persistently stick with something. Abba Moses said this, “sit in your cell and your cell will teach you everything.” In other words to fight the temptation for constant variety, be still and stay in one place.

Our hunger for variety and stimulation leads us to a rootless existence. We cannot grow deeper in our relationship with God if we have yielded to the temptation of acedia. What penetrates our hearts is not a constantly changing kaleidoscope of stimulation but the slow, steady, persistent, faithful practice of stillness. This penetrates our hearts the way persistent drops of water will create indentions on stone. When one practices stillness over a period of time the familiar becomes cherished, not despised. Patience replaces boredom and there is room for compassion to grow and flourish.