Friday is for Friends<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The first section of chp 7 in Kathleen Norris' Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life is relentlessly profound. Today I want to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/11\/28\/friday-is-for-friends-97\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Friday is for Friends\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The first section of chp 7 in Kathleen Norris' Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life is relentlessly profound. 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{"id":4968,"date":"2008-11-28T00:30:41","date_gmt":"2008-11-28T05:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/jesuscreed\/2008\/11\/28\/friday-is-for-friends-97\/"},"modified":"2008-11-28T00:30:41","modified_gmt":"2008-11-28T05:30:41","slug":"friday-is-for-friends-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2008\/11\/28\/friday-is-for-friends-97\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday is for Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"Norris2.jpg\"$ <\/a><\/span>The first section of chp 7 in Kathleen Norris\u2019\u00a0 Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer\u2019s Life<\/a> $\"\"$
\n<\/strong><\/em> is relentlessly profound. Today I want to clip a few lines of hers about human nature and apathy (acedia) and ask for your response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Church has made too much of the sin of pride, which seduces us
\ninto thinking too highly of ourselves, it has not made enough of the
\nsin of sloth, which allows us to settle for being less than we can be,
\nboth as individuals and as a society\u201d (113).<\/p>\n

Not achieving what God has called us to do \u2014 a sin of omission \u2014 assaults the gravity of being made as Eikons of God.<\/i><\/p>\n

\n\u201cMany people who would not dream of relying on the understanding of literature or the sciences they acquired as children are content to leave their juvenile theological convictions largely unexamined\u201d (114).<\/p>\n

My comment: many choose, out of acedia, to dwell in perpetual spiritual adolescence.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 the more that society\u2019s ills surface in such evil ways, the less we are able, it seems, to detect any evil within ourselves, let alone work effectively to fix what is wrong\u201d (115).<\/p>\n

\u201d \u2018I can\u2019t pray that,\u2019 I have heard pastors say of the cursing psalms, or the confessional ones, which admit to loving lies more than truth, to resenting others or desiring revenge. We\u2019re not like that. We\u2019re good people,\u201d these folks say of themselves, \u201cor good enough, having willed away the prejudice, tribalism, and violence in our hearts. We are at a loss to explain their presence in the world around us\u201d (117).<\/p>\n

I wonder aloud here: Is our incredulity about racism perhaps an indicator of our own self-righteousness?<\/i><\/p>\n

Sorry to be so sober with friends. We need these words.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"