Rabbit Trails and Spiderwebs

House of Cards There is a part in the book “A grief observed”, by C.S. Lewis, where he talks about the way mankind creates a structural representation of God that is a house of cards.  God, not being pleased by the misrepresentation of this house, blows a bit of breath on it and it collapses easily.  We respond in horror that our representation is collapsed and are confronted with the knowledge that we have made some error, but then we start again.  The interesting part comes when we realize that we do this with many aspects of our lives.  That we build a structure of expectations for friends, relatives and business actions that conform to that internal sense of things being “right”.  This is then divided into two parts.  The first is the sense of violation when the expectation is not met or worse when it is trampled on purpose and we have been made the one that the joke was played upon.  The second part is when we realize we made the assumptions ourselves and didn’t verify or later cl

Slothfulness – indifference  (Acedia) Seldom heard of, this is actually one of the 7 Deadly Sins.  Acedia is the term first brought about by a monk in 1670, it is often heard by the name of Sloth.  Current use of the term sloth would be understood as the animal that bears its name, or that is the slovenly and unmotivated person.  In the list of the 7 Deadly Sins they all seem to count as behaviors.  Wrath, Greed, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy, and Gluttony.  Lust and pride, of course are internal and their fulfillment is found in the actions they produce, but that can also be said of them all.  But to read them you simply pass over the word sloth and perhaps think “indolent” or unfocused on their task.  You would be mistaken. Acedia is a different form of malaise and is at times described as “depression”.  While there is a parallel track of common behaviors and symptoms their actual being and their root causes are different.  Acedia can be found in today’s phrasing as “whatever”.  It shows