This is a great book. I listened to it on CD but it is a great book on the unusual theme of "acedia" which is, basically, the inability to care. It strikes people (as does its partner, sloth) and makes it difficult to live and act and be.
Kathleen Norris wrote the book and also provides the audio. She is not the most polished speaker in the world but her narration lends an authenticity to the book that you would not get if it were narrated by a professional reader. She relates her battles with acedia and spends quite a bit of time relating it to the challenges she faced as her husband experienced all sorts of emotional and physical problems.
She found herself, strangely enough, in the two very different worlds of North Dakota and Hawaii. She enjoyed (and enjoys) the monastic tradition and writes with great insight into clinical depression and "cures" (and especially spiritual cures) for diseases which afflict all of us from time to time.
One of the memorable passages concerns the last minutes of her husband's life and the need for the visiting clergyman to read Psalm 27. She longed for it to be read in the poetic verse of the King James Version or from the older Book of Common Prayer "because my husband is a poet and would want it read that way." Her desire here was somewhat frustrated by the events but I enjoyed her (and her husband's) need for something more than just translated words.
Part of the package of this CD was also receiving a down loadable book of Acedia comments traced through history.
This book was well worth listening to and reflecting upon. You will not be disappointed.
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