Sayer's Murder Must Advertise and Nault's The Noonday Devil with cameos from Nicholson's The Letters of Magdalen Montague and (why not?) Dante's Comedy
This was wonderful! A definite bolster for all the things I know are true but often forget.
Here’s where I’m going to make another book talk… not at all on the same plane as Dante et. al, but the book Burnout, tries to offer a secular answer to the feelings of what I think really be properly identified as acedia. One of the brain things they talk about is the feedback system that gets frustrated at the lack of progress. The list of ways to address acedia are essentially these small ways of working with this system to re-adjust goals, which itself is a daily crucifying of our desires. What we thought we accomplish is not actually what we can accomplish, but we can’t give in to despair.
It reminds me of the St Teresa Benedicta quote,
"And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God's hands and leave it with Him."
Jessica, you connected these many thoughts so beautifully! This was insightful and thought provoking. I keep finding myself coming back to thinking about it- well done!
I need to print out the edited Acedia quote poster size and put it on my fridge or something. Such a great post!
Oh I second this! Can we make an artistic PDF and sell it in the *currently non existent* Reading Revisited shop?
Love it
You connected it all for us, helped us see ourselves more clearly and inspired us to stay the course! Simply beautiful! Perfect really!
This was wonderful! A definite bolster for all the things I know are true but often forget.
Here’s where I’m going to make another book talk… not at all on the same plane as Dante et. al, but the book Burnout, tries to offer a secular answer to the feelings of what I think really be properly identified as acedia. One of the brain things they talk about is the feedback system that gets frustrated at the lack of progress. The list of ways to address acedia are essentially these small ways of working with this system to re-adjust goals, which itself is a daily crucifying of our desires. What we thought we accomplish is not actually what we can accomplish, but we can’t give in to despair.
It reminds me of the St Teresa Benedicta quote,
"And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the reasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God's hands and leave it with Him."
I'm a little late reading this, but I came across it at just the right time. I'm saving this post so I can revisit it frequently!
I’m so glad it resonated with you! And, like Gandalf, a reader on Substack is never late, but arrives at a piece exactly when they were meant to :)
Jessica, you connected these many thoughts so beautifully! This was insightful and thought provoking. I keep finding myself coming back to thinking about it- well done!
Thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed the thoughts as well as they came my way :)
Printed out the whole thing to revisit as needed! Thank you!
What a compliment! Thank you!
Oh good idea!