Acedia means essentially lack of interest and absence of passion. It is not the same as the sin of omission, which is the lack of moral response, but represents its breeding ground. In our privatized world, acedia is rarely seen as a sin/vice because what you do with your time is your own deal, after you have served the Moloch called “job” for the amount of time required. If you spend your “free time” on your couch or if you claim to be “apolitical” nobody can object. Only when you get to the point that you are not able to function on the workplace you may be diagnosed with depression.
In reality, a society in which a large number of people have acquired the habit of inaction, and that accepts the notion that lacking passions is a personal and thus private matter, is close to its death. Without demonizing depression — which may have a number of organic and psychological causes — it is important to recall that both acedia and the attitude of sourness and cynicism toward life often accompanying it and equally often developing into some form of arrogance is a very serious matter for both the individual and the community.
Matthew Fox suggests that the capital sin of acedia is the root of all the other vices and the most dominant sin in our culture today. He follows many other spiritual authors who, through the centuries, have underlined how dangerous is “sloth.”
In some cases acedia has been rewritten as tristitia, that is, sadness (John Cassian, Gregory the Great, Meister Eckhart). Several ancient authors have also observed that acedia/tristitia is accompanied by a certain restlessness, which we see today in the incessant search for distractions.
A very fine teaching that Matthew delivers with regard to acedia and distractions in our society is the following: Our driven pursuit of distractions is part of our flight from what acedia has to teach us, especially its demand that we ground ourselves in the earth and in the mother of the earth, the cosmos. We fly away and around as crazy moths because we think that we cannot stay, rest and make roots, we feel constrained, but once we explore in depth our present place, we find out precisely the opposite.
Matthew’s major contribution, however, resides in his intuition to pair the sin of acedia with a blockage in the first chakra, which is also known as the root chakra. This chakra grounds us to the earth, connects us to the depth of things. All the other power centers depend on this one being engaged and alive, open and flowing. Because of its position at the base of the spine, and thus also its connections to the nervous system in the legs, opening the first chakra means in the first place moving and dancing. In essence, while a blocked first chakra breeds isolation, boredom and despair, a healthy first chakra means listening to the vibrations and music of all that is, it means taking in the sound of the universe.
Re-reading Matthew’s reflections in the present context, I would like to underline precisely dancing as healing, which is the opposite of dancing as distraction. We can dance even in communion with those who cannot dance, we can feel and honor the rhythm of lives very distant from ours, entering in mystical communion with them. Whether we simply stomp our feet on the ground, or we are able to move gracefully in space, through rhythmic movement we can find grounding and stability of a quality that we cannot gain otherwise.
Understanding how bad the situation gets when acedia dominates our inner landscape is not enough. Actually, acedia’s mind game is precisely that of making us believe that by musing about the problem we can solve the problem. In reality, we need to get off our couches, go touch some ground, and engage our bodily selves. We need to return to nature — to our first chakra’s relationship to the earth and cosmos — to bring what Bill McKibben calls “fundamental information” into our senses again.
I invite you to read the very fine pages that Matthew dedicates to the analysis of acedia (Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh, pp. 167-208). Quotes are from pages 99, 167-168, 175, 178.
See also Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
See also Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
See also Fox, The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
Banner Image: Anti-social subway riders, Shibuya, Japan. Photo by Hugh Han on Unsplash
Queries for Contemplation
How often do I move rhythmically/dance? What difference does it make to me? Why is it “spiritual”?
Recommended Reading
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times
A stunning spiritual handbook drawn from the substantive teachings of Aquinas’ mystical/prophetic genius, offering a sublime roadmap for spirituality and action.
Foreword by Ilia Delio.
“What a wonderful book! Only Matt Fox could bring to life the wisdom and brilliance of Aquinas with so much creativity. The Tao of Thomas Aquinas is a masterpiece.”
–Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
