Acedia:The Noonday Devil

Are we really lazy? In the movie Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds, the second most popular movie in Korean film history, the hero was able to escape the hell that punished those who were lazy, giving us a glimpse of Dante's Divine Comedy on the same subject with a Buddhist understanding of the after-life. In Purgatory the lazy, race about proclaiming the benefits of being zealous.
 
However is this a problem in our society? A Catholic university rector, in the Kyeongyang magazine, asks the readers. It seems that we are far from the vice of sloth. People work too late at night, one job is not enough. Married couples both have to work and with great intensity. People waiting at a red light often use the few moments with their handphones—good picture of modern life. Rather then more diligence we need to call for a moratorium on busyness. That would be a religious approach to the issues facing us in modern society.
 
Sloth is listed among the seven capital sins but it's not primarily dealing with the laziness of our bodies and minds but failure to be concerned on this earth with God's kingdom and our relationships with others. Sloth is being busy about many things with little concern for God and neighbors. This is the sloth we as Christians are meant to examine.
 
Within the church's tradition theologians, literary people, and critics use the word 'Acedia' to mean laziness, sloth, lack of interest, depression, and tediousness all contained in the word 'Acedia' of the seven capital sins.
 
Evagrius Ponticus and his disciple St. John Cassian listed eight principal vices: gluttony, fornication, greed, anger, sadness, acedia, boastfulness, and pride.  They distinguished between sadness and acedia (sloth)— connected but different. It was Pope Gregory I who included sadness in Acedia and added envy and added boastfulness to pride.  St.Thomas Aquinas many centuries later excluded sadness and we have the list of seven that we know now. However, we must remember sadness is a part of laziness.

In English, the word sloth also refers to the animal tree-dwelling mammal noted for its slowness of movement. However, more than the physical lack of movement it is a lack of interest, laziness of the spirit, spiritual lethargy. Use of the word by the hermits and religious of the early church has more to do with the internal attitude rather than our external activity—slowness of the body. Rather it was the sickness of the soul—lack of volition and vitality.
 
" The demon of acedia, which is also called the noonday demon (Ps 90,6) is the most burdensome of all the demons... It makes the sun appear to slow down or stop, so the day seems to be fifty hours long...Then it assails him with hatred of his place, his way of life and the work of his hands; that love has departed from the brethren and there is no one to console him (Praktikos # 12).
 
Unlike the other capital sins where it is the doing that is sinful here it is the non-doing. First, we have a distaste an antipathy in acting for the good. Secondly, it's a disinterest in God's working within us, the needs of others, our obligations that fail to alert and move us to answer the call of love.
 
Evagrius Ponticus was a 4th-century monk and ascetic. He concludes the chapter on the afternoon devil with a great consolation: "No other demon follows on immediately after this one but after its struggle, the soul receives, in turn, a peaceful condition and unspeakable joy."

Is There a Right Side?

Fr. Kim is considered a good priest by his parishioners. He doesn't get upset and treats all the parishioners kindly. He doesn't take sides in disputes in society and wants to avoid showing any preferences with problems of society. Even when there are positions to be promoted if there are objections he avoids them. He doesn't like conflict among believers, he wants quiet and peace. 

A retired priest who was active in social justice, writes in a bulletin for priests on taking sides and introduces the article with the above as the first paragraph. He reminds the readers that we have parishioners who criticize this attitude in their priests. It's not black or white but always grey; he doesn't want to go deeply into problems. Fr. Kim doesn't concern himself with these differences of opinions within the parish but they continue to exist.

If nobody has problems with the priest,  maybe something needs to be corrected. Possible too much effort trying to please everybody without any deep conviction of what we are called to do. The writer has met persons who are not happy with those who see no problems in life and all is hunkey-dory. Maybe there is a  need for us to reflect on this position with a little more deliberation.

There is a large company in Fr. Kim's parish, and because of labor disputes it was noisy. Workers demonstrated and some were taken to the police station. A member of the pastoral council of the parish recommended that the priest mention it to the community since it happened in the parish. The council took the side of the workers.

The parish priest heard his side of the  story and said: "You  must be fair. You have to listen to both sides of the story. There are always right and wrong on both sides. Christian faith is not about raising conflict, but about reconciliation, forgiveness, and peace."

Is this the entire teaching of Jesus? But reconciliation and forgiveness apply in most cases to personal conflicts. Many conflicts and struggles are not private. Some conflicts are wrong on one side and right on the other. One side is unfair and oppressive, and the other suffering from injustice and oppression.

In such cases, it is a mistake not to choose one side over the other. In this case, neutral is to accept the current immoral situation. In a situation of suffering, silence will tolerate the condition and stand on the side of the oppressor. We are not to reconcile good and evil, justice and injustice, but to work against evil and unrighteousness as Christians. Granted that this needs to be done civilly, with dialog and openness.

When Pope Francis came to Korea, he gave a good example of what is demanded from us. At that time, there was a serious conflict between the government and the family of over 300 who died in the Sewol ferry disaster in 2014. It was one of the worst peacetime disasters that led to criminal convictions.

  

At that time, the pope said to those on the side of the government who were calling for neutrality: "neutrality is not correct when you have those suffering." The Pope met with the families of the Sewol six times. And he wore a yellow ribbon in support of the family members.

Jesus' peace is not an orderly and quiet peace, but a peace based on truth, justice, and love. The peace that the world presents us is a superficial peace that distorts truth and conceals injustice to achieve cleverly selfish purposes. Jesus emphasized the inevitability of conflict in order to break this false peace and achieve true peace.

Media Literacy

Everyone has a natural right to defend themselves, be it life, liberty or property. This is part of our code of law: preventing an unlawful infringement of one's own or another person's interest shall not be punished if there is a good reason. So begins an article in the Believer's Column by a one time newspaper man in the Catholic Times. 

Consequently, even if one is convicted of a felony one is given a chance to defend oneself. Also, when a child does something wrong the adult should give the child a chance to give their reasons.
 
What about the press? As is well known, 'surveillance and criticism' is an important function of the press. In the meantime, media criticism of public and public issues is almost unlimited. Freedom of speech is guaranteed by the Constitution. However, the Constitution restricts freedom of speech when it dishonors the rights of others,  public morals or social ethics. Accordingly, one has the right to claim reparation and compensation if they feel they have been wronged.

Journalism has some limitations on criticism. When a news story contains criticism or misrepresentation about an individual or an organization, it is necessary to give those criticized the opportunity to clarify and respond to the contents. For this reason, media, which can criticize almost unlimitedly against public officials, are often subject to ethical sanctions because they do not give the parties an opportunity to explain.
 
The Korean Newspaper Ethics Committee issued a caution against an article last year on one of these issues. There are so many reports that criticize unilaterally without giving the ones criticized a chance to explain. This means that we are in most cases left with the reporting of the newspapers and the media; the rights of the parties criticized are ignored. If you have been criticized unilaterally from the media, you can ask the Media Arbitration Commission for corrections of the reports.
 
It's a basic human rights issue when a person or organization is criticized and does not have the opportunity to speak in their defense. Some might say that it is not fake news because the facts have not been manipulated. But the writer thinks that this "non-truth news" which cannot be real news and should be included in the fake news category. This is because the basic principles of journalism, namely accuracy, objectivity, and fairness, are not being met adequately.

Hate Speech in Society

We are living in an in a hate-filled society which the recent newly coined words bear witness—words that demean others in society.  The head of a  research center concerned with changes in social mental states writes in the Kyeongyang magazine on what he sees happening in society.
 
What are we talking about with this hatefulness he sees in society? It's a feeling of disgust which one feels coming into contact with certain things or people that triggers a revulsion. It's a concern with the emotional revulsion and not with the rational part of our makeup, consequently one has difficulty reasoning with the feelings experienced. We are dealing with subjective feelings and not with intellectual opinions that come from our reasoning, right or wrong.

Some people who hear the words ox blood soup, the saliva begins to flow and others a feeling of queasiness in the stomach.  Which shows we are dealing with a subjective matter. When we have this situation and face it with an open mind and understand it as a personal subjective feeling there is no social problem. When this is not the case and express this hatefulness both in words and actions, hatefulness spreads in society, now especially on the internet that becomes a serious threat to society.

Why is this the case in our present society?  We have always had a situation where subjective feelings of likes and dislikes were experienced with objects and people but it was managed with our ethical codes of conduct. However, recently we have come to the understanding that we have the right to express our hateful feelings.
 
Democratic education considers important our individual rights and the expression of these rights: in government, in department stores with the customers and salespersons, restaurants, apartment buildings with the security persons. We have many rolls and postions in society but the reason for the problems are all pretty much the same. Our rights are primary; we forget the obligation to respect the other and our place in  community.
 
No blame on the democratic education received but our place in community is forgotten and the individual becomes primary. We see this in the dramas, movies, novels, not only in Korea.  In the United States coming into the 21st century, we see Sex and the City as the dramas that are popular. The community is not as important as the individual and their tastes. What in the past was considered selfish by society today is a natural right and this is now seen worldwide. Jean Twenge has written a book Narcissism Epidemic which she considers spreading wildly. 
 
He sees the cure for this in three ways. We first need to change our perspective. It's not to change our tastes of what we like or dislike for that is a natural outcome of being human but rather wanting it excessively to become part of society. Because we don't like ox blood soup, we don't want everybody to do the same. Secondly, is to examine ourselves. Because someone was hateful to me doesn't mean I should return that hate.  Opposed for opposition sake tells us who we are. Thirdly, efforts to have an open mind, magnanimous. Even though we feel disgusted and hatefulness emotionally,  it does not become a social problem. As believers, we should be open to embracing all in society absent the hate speech that is so common.

Small Thrills Present in Our Daily LIfe

In one of the diocesan bulletins, a college professor recalls his days as a child and the joy he had in finding the items in the picture puzzles that appeared in the newspapers and magazines. They were like any ordinary pictures at first glance but you were told to find the items hidden: animals, people, household goods and the like.

For most to find all the different hidden objects without any hints would be difficult.  Even after looking closely at the pictures tens of times, without the words: apple, boots, umbrella, cat, grandmother... as helpful indicators one would give up easily. Once he knew what to look for, the hints made the task easy. One after another, the items began to appear.
 
The writer moves from the picture puzzle to our own lives and the big picture that comes to us daily. He wonders if our lives are not in some way similar to the picture puzzles he remembers as a child. We have little thrills hidden away in our daily lives which we do not see because of our busyness.
 
Without any clues, every new day will be seen as a rehash of yesterday. The thrill we should have of a whole new day with all its possibilities passes us by. We need to be like the child looking for the many new things that we have missed in the past.
 
God has given us many clues to live each day to the full. Not only in pictures to the eye but also words to the ear and the non-verbal we need to unravel with our senses all working together.
 
We should be able to see and hear much more than we are accustomed if we were cognizant that it was there to be apprehended. Much more can be seen than what the eyes can behold; much more to be heard than what the ears can hear. Our spiritual eyes and ears permit us to see and hear not only with our external senses but with the inner eye and ear.
 
Each day is a new day filled with all kinds of possibilities of seeing the uncommon in the common the extraordinary in the ordinary. We miss so much because of the limits we have imposed on our senses, the lack of expectations and oblivious to the presence of grace.

Place of Endurance in Happiness

Happiness has been the goal of life for many generations.  Psychiatrists and psychologists of course, and also popular novelists, scientists of the mind, in their own way repeat this teaching. So begins an article in the Kyeongyang magazine on the virtue of patience by a psychiatrist. He looks at the Korean culture and comes to some interesting conclusions on happiness.
 
On the bestseller lists are a great many books with the psychology of happiness included in the subject matter. Religion also has this as a subject. Even sermons treat the subject psychologically, flavored at the end with some Scriptural quotes.

We all want to be happy. Is this not our true self? Consequently, we have to have it at all costs.The world's thinking is that you have to be happy to succeed and not happy because you succeeded. So the efforts to smile at our pain and failures to cover over our unhappiness. It's like spitting out food that we don't like. We have an obsession to find happiness
 
Patience in the past was an important virtue. Happiness until recently was not mentioned that often. It was rather something that happened when one received an unexpected good fortune. But recently the sphere has greatly expanded: bodily pleasure, mental joy, respect in society, financial security, relief from pain,  all clumsily wrapped up into one.
 
In the past patience was considered necessary to endure the difficulties of life. This was like bitter medicine we had to swallow. The medical profession unless it was some very serious mental problem did not think small unhappinesses were a matter for medical concern, but temperance and patience were in order.
 
This was true in the religious world also. Confessing our sins, self-denial, prayer, meditation were necessary to find answers to our problems. One was expected to refrain from many of the pleasures of life, since difficulties were part of life. We did not desire excessive recognition by the world or material wealth. Happiness was not the goal of life but rather often considered a temptation.
 
The psychology of happiness now becomes center stage as a new industry. We are much better off than our ancestors, securer, freer, but also a greater thirst for happiness—we want more comfort, wealth, and freedom.
 
Clergy who recommend patience are not popular. Since demand requires supply— are not religious organization now the agencies that supply happiness?

In Korea we have the new word heard often: YOLO the abbreviation for You Only Live Once so eat and be merry.  St. Paul said the same thing in I Cor. 15:32: "But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes: Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we will die." He also in Rom. 5:3-4: "We also boast of our troubles, because we know that trouble produces endurance, endurance brings God's approval, and his approval creates hope."

Happiness for a Christian is not an object of search, a pursuit, it's a by-product of a well-lived life the results of living the life of virtue.

Chaos And Religious Belief

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep...." These are the first words of Genesis. 

An article in the Kyeongyang magazine by a computer scientist gives the readers an understanding of Chaos. Originally coming from the Greek word abyss and emptiness. God gave the order to this Chaos and we have the Cosmos.
 
A new meaning was given to Chaos in the 20th century. Sir  James Lighthill who held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at the Cambridge University in England at the 300th anniversary of Newton's Principia said that the scientists need to apologize to Newton for misunderstanding the Newtonian laws of motion as if all was predictable.
 
Chaos Theory is the science of unpredictability. Traditional science dealth with predictable phenomena, however, from the 1960s, Chaos Theory, the nonlinear things are impossible to predict or control.
 
St. Thomas said in arguing for the existence of God, the movement we see around us was his first proof. Anything that moves must be moved by another. But we cannot have an infinite retrogression of movers, so we come to the something that is not moved, the  Unmoved Mover which accounts for all the other movement in the universe. This we understand as God. The writer says Thomas' argument is solid but he would like to insert the word change for motion.
 
The force that moves material bodies is measured by the science of kinetics which explains the movement of the heavenly bodies. The French astronomer Laplace, an extreme determinist was asked by Napoleon then the emperor of France: why didn't he include God in his book on the heavens. His answer was there was no need for that hypothesis. Showing he was a Deist or atheist.
 
Contrary to those who believe in a personal God and the Creator of the universe we have the Deists who may believe in God who started everything but is not involved in the world. They deny a personal God and the atheist, the very idea of God is denied. In today's world of science like Einstein and Laplace, we have a great number who are Deists or atheists. 

After Newton physicists were sure that they could predict the movement of the heavens. The writer mentions the three body problem—measuring the paths of three bodies in their gravitational interaction—Celebrating his 60th birthday the King of Sweden offered a prize to anyone who would solve the problem. Henri Poincaré did not solve the problem but did receive the prize.

Edward Norton Lorenz an American meteorologist in 1961 working with three weather variables: temperature, atmospheric pressure, and wind velocity and how they relate with one another made a numerical equation to determine their interaction. Briefly, his results are what we call the Butterfly effect. Beginning systems are so sensitive to conditions, results are impossible to predict. The popular expression of this is a butterfly in Mexico could be the cause of a storm in China.
 
He finishes the article by asking how do we avoid chaos in our lives. His answer is living with the thought that we live, breathe and have our being in God. We have to take time out to meditate. He remembers hearing about John Calvin's belief in predestination as a child, and was appalled by it and was happy to hear about quantum physics and was attracted to its teaching. He ends with the future is not determined and even what is determined cannot be predicted. We need to examine our present surroundings and make our future.