Give til it feels

Why do we give?

Incident #1

On the road, which is where we seem to encounter the Trickster most (see Hermes). I am approached by a attractive, middle-class-looking man who stumbles over his "pitch". He claims (I don't hear the details) that he has had his possessions stolen from the back of his pickup. The fact that it took him a few minutes to get to the point (asking for money) lends verisimilitude to his approach. Much to my wife's annoyance, I gave him a small percentage of what he was asking for ($5). I rarely give money, not having all that much, but that doesn't soothe my wife, when she finds it necessary to balance to the penny.


Incident #2

I need to go downtown to Home Depot to get banister hardware for the rental house across town. At the last minute, I decide to take the turnpike. I stop at the Kum & Go (a real place) to get a soda (another pet peeve of my wife).

This Indian man asks if I can give him a ride to Tulsa. Turns out he's Oglala Sioux with long pig-tails and a gap-toothed grin. I tell him 'm going downtown; he offers to pay for the ride, but I tell him he doesn't have to. I don't give rides, mostly. I question my judgement as he gets in my truck.

On the way to our destination, he tells me that he's been visiting his son in Stroud, who is incarcerated in a juvenile detention center. He's 14 and been sneaking out of his mom's house to go get in trouble. Many Native kids in his age-group are addicted to meth, the scourge of our state. My passenger is trying to get custody--his mother doesn't want to deal with him any longer and complicating the issue is that she is a different tribe.

I drop my passenger off at his apartment complex (Christ says that if you are pressed for a mile, go two). I tell him I'll pray for his them. The really interesting bit is that this man was "praying to Holy Spirit" for a ride because he was tired, having walked from Stroud. Then I show up. Enough to make you believe in God. 

Analysis:  

The first incident involved money and had a negative feeling--I felt awkward/embarrassed.  I suspect that is one of the feelings that made the Levites etc. (in the Good Samaritan parable) pass the possibly dead man.

The second made me and my wife feel good. 

The only difference, aside from the skill of the recipient (after all, there may have been no 14 year old), was that the second was slightly more inconvenient. Time is money, my wife's attitude toward money notwithstanding. Is $5 equivalent to how long it takes in gas and time to got from the interstate to an apartment complex?

No, I think the feeling is emotion (aside from whether the guy needed $5). The first guy probably had a bad delivery because he was ashamed. The next guy who asks for money will get a blessing instead of cash, of which I have too little. St Peter said something similar somewhere.

In which our hero develops his theme

Acedia (or sloth) is numbered among the seven (or eight) Deadly Sins. There really are eight, but one (pride) is considered the root of them all. Those interested the history of their development should read Evagrius of Pontus, Cassian, Gregory the Great, & Thomas Aquinas. I also recommend Glittering Vices by Rebecca Konydyk DeYoung, associate philosopher of philosophy at Calvin College.

Far from being a minor vice--after all, if it was the original sin, we'd still be in Paradise--acedia is the resistance to God's love. It is this inner quality that exhausts its victim and makes them appear lazy. In actuality, like the clinically depressed, she spends so much time and energy in this process (deliberately so, because they'd rather fight than switch) that there is none for action. The true vice is this resistance. Habitués of Sloth can appear to be very busy, but this is a "false busyness". He is frantically running away from God.

To quote Evagrius, the demon of acedia affects the monk about 10 AM and besieges his soul until 2 PM. The demon makes the sun appear to crawl across the sky. Those four hours take forever to pass. The monk is restless, looking outside to see if it is 3 PM yet--quitting time. He develops a dislike for his cell and for his companions. Any call center employee can relate.

"He leads him on to a desire for other places where he can easily find the wherewithal to meet his needs [and pursue a trade elsewhere. After all, pleasing the Lord is not a question of locality.]"--Praktikos

Quoting DeYoung, the Greek word (a-kedeia) means "lack of care". (I'm not sure whether care here means attention or apathy. If I cared enough to pay attention, I'd google.) A grave spiritual malady, it manifests as dejection or a sense of oppressiveness. The vice is serious, powerful and threatens one's commitment to religious identity and vocation. One's entire commitment to life in God is at stake. It is that deadly.

In Steven Pressfield's the War of Art, Resistance--with a capital R--threatens any time someone attempts anything from a spiritual discipline to great art. Whether you actually produce anything saleable or not, any time you put brush to canvas, you've beaten Resistance.

How this vice affects me: domesticity. If you don't believe keeping a house is a spiritual discipline (actually, everything is), you haven't tried it. The only time cleaning is joyous is either 1) you have a true vocation for it or 2) you are trying to write a novel and are blocked. I'm not sure which way Resistance wins in that instance, but there it is. Certain household tasks (in fact, anything practical) overwhelm me. Learned helplessness or letting my illness (mood/thought disorder) run over me. 

During these events and the marital discord that results (we are perennially broke, in part because we both subsist from rental property income and Social Security), I feel that God has abandoned me to my fate. In those moments, prayer is futile. Christ is absent. Now, I know about the Dark Night of the Soul and all, but I am not so egotistical as to believe that is what is happening. Someone once complained that God doesn't treat his friends very well.

Maybe this blog will help you, Dear Reader. If it does that, then this is not mere self-reflection, mere enthusiasm.