I don't want to forget.
When I started dating my husband, I quickly learned that he has a much better memory than I do. Never mind that I remember strange details from our first date; by and large, he recalls far more of our conversations and experiences than I do.
I don't like forgetting. It makes me feel like I've lost something - a memory that I could have treasured and referenced in a future moment - an idea that I won't be able to get back - an insight I wanted to discuss, but now will never have the chance.
In this case, a friend asked that we read a book and then discuss it when we finish. I don't know where she is in the work, but there's so much in this book that I want to talk to her about, and I fear all memory of striking insights will fade to a generic gray cloud before we have the chance to sit down together and talk.
I finished "With All Her Mind: A call to the Intellectual Life", edited by Rachel Bulman, and I want this feeling of life I have to remain with me - not just until I talk about it with my galpal, but to stay and encourage me as I work on developing my intellectual life.
So, I'm writing notes and some of the quotations that struck me. I'm starting with the final essay and moving backwards because I have the most recent and extensive memories of these last pages than I do of the first, which I read in the winter of the previous year.
16. "The Mind of Writing" by Tsh Oxenrider
This essay was mainly about writing. Not surprisingly, it made me want to write. It doesn't have to be big, but I think she's right when she says that writing can help clarify thinking. I have often made excuses for not writing, but now that the urge is upon me, I think I will stay up a few more minutes to make a decent start on this section. I like her idea of a florilegium - I've already been doing something like that for a while, and the dedication to this crystalized during my auditing of humanities courses through Newman.
She talked about writing in a way that made it feel approachable. Some women will, and SHOULD, write epic adventures that others need - that the world needs. Other women will write for themselves, or for their families. It doesn't seem so bad to me if one of these two latter options is all that happens for me. Yes, I've had closet desires for worldwide fame as a novelist for a long time, but perhaps the hidden writing of an unknown wife and mother is what I need and what God calls me to.
I like Tsh's writing style. "It's been widely said that writing is a form of thinking. The science back this up, as does my own personal experience and the hearsay of many more folks who consider themselves the writing sort. A blank journal page and pen or the blinking cursor on a white screen serve as a canvas on which to slather different colors of ideas" (pg. 115). I loved how she worked in the idea of woman as creator - not making it her main thesis, but incorporating it so that the idea grew, as it were, and came to its culmination at the end.
"Perchance you could even take, with modest sagacity, the blazing torch passed down from the lettered women in our great cloud of witnesses: Flannery O'Connor, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Edith Stein, St. Teresa of Avila. These women wrote in spit of themselves. They wrote because God gave them a pen. They gave birth to paragraphs, and our world changed for the better because of it. You need not be them. You need simply be you. but what great company you'll be in when you write.
"Fundamentally, we write because God whispers in our ears and we want to respond in kind to the world. As Madeleine L'Engle once said in Walking on Water, 'To work on a book is for me very much the same thing as to pray...Ultimately, when you are writing, you stop thinking and write what you hear.'
"The strength of women is stamped and cataloged by their words, and their words illuminate the voice of God. We're gifted with the gift of giving birth to new life. God speaks to women. Women deliver into the world these words when they write. God speaks to you. Perhaps you're complled ot give life to this on paper." (pp. 120-121)
For some reason, this seems like the right essay to end this collection with. Not only does it tie in the idea of giving birth, it suggests a practice that is practical and likely achievable because it is something that can be done in the space of a few minutes or many. It suggests something that I'm already starting to do tonight.
"A few women should feel compelled to write so that others can visit their inventions and imaginative worlds. Even more women should want to write to deepen their own wisdom, enriching their core humanness and becoming more virtuous in the process. Yet I hope that many, many more women choose to pick up a pen so that their own lores aren't forgotten. Our world needs their computer coding, their mathematical theories, their maternal wisdom, their poetry, their sci-fis and whodunnits, and their green bean casseroles. Women should write because writing makes us more human, and women should write because it makes the words better." (pp. 118-119)
The more I write down quotes and reflect on her ideas, the more I find my thoughts are spurred on to further development. I think writing is important for me to do so that I don't just become a consumer of products. I love taking in knowledge and stories and literary criticism but I hardly remember any of it. If I were to sit down and write regularly...and, specifically, type, so that my writing can keep better pace with my thoughts...I think I would find myself recalling works better. I think I would engage with them better, gnaw sustenance out of their bones with a bit more success.
I think I need to write.
I don't think this is the sort of "needing to write" that Jo March or Emily of New Moon had. This isn't the sort of "I need to express myself in this creative outlet or else I'll go mad." This is the sort of "I need to write" that says, quietly, "I need to write because I think it helps make me a little more whole...". I want to try out writing more frequently.
15. "The Feminine Intellect and Acadamia" by Holly Ordway
I'm approaching writing of my thoughts for this essay with a lot less mental and physical energy than the last one. In her essay, an author I admire writes candidly about the realities and real challenges of pursuing a life in academia. I'm glad that I never seriously pursued a career as a college professor, although part of me still thinks it would be cool and sometimes fun. I can recognize I mainly want to share in the intellectual tradition, however, and soak it in - not necessarily do the work involved, at least right now.
I'm blessed insofar as I have a woman in my family who is a college professor, so I've had an insider's view of the difficulties of academia as a professor, and specifically as a female professor. I had taken her work in academia for granted, seeing it as just the job that she had, but this essay helps me appreciate a little bit more how challenging this career has probably been for her.
I feel good about my current life path - I think this essay was supposed to help with that, in one sense - but Ordway makes a point of saying that earning a PhD and working as a professor is not the only path that allows one to participate in academia. I may not go so far as to pursue a master's degree, research, and write and present papers like she suggests, but I like to think I can participate in "lower-case academia" in small ways through the life I'm living - building a community of thinking with the women in my life, participating in small ways in various offered activities at my alma mater, and by continuing to read and - hopefully - write.
There was only one quote I took note of from this essay, but it spurred some reflection for me.
"In some Christian circles, the so-called 'Billy Graham rule' (never being alone with a woman so as not to be tempted to have an affair) is crippling for women's academic and professional growth, as it hinders collegial conversations, collaborative work, mentoring, and simple friendship. (It's also demeaning to women, treating them first and foremost as objects of sexual attraction and denying agency to both men and women for their own behavior." (pg. 109)
I know I've talked about this practice with other people before, and I probably didn't find much wrong with it when I did. After all, it's probably better to avoid temptation if that's a concern, I thought.
It wasn't until I read these few lines that my eyes were opened to how unjust this practice can be. It lets fear of sin lessen the charity we can show to others. Women might literally be missing out on making advancements in their careers because they don't have the opportunity to hobnob with the men like men do. I think their is wisdom in avoiding one-on-one interactions if there is actual danger of an affair breaking out, but I now think it's unfair to apply the rule generally. I'd like to talk to more people about this phenomenon and hear what others think.
14. "Pursuit in the Drudgery" by Leah Libresco Sargeant
I'm already having to skim essays to remember what they were about and see if any of the lines stick out to me. Nothing really did until the last page and half or so; the rest of the article felt like it was setting the stage for the final reflections. In summary, the author discusses work that is "drudgery" and what it can do for us spiritually.
I liked that the author talked about Maria Montessori, a woman and writer I've heard about over the years and longed to read, but haven't made the time for yet.
"Maria Montessori urges parents to nourish their child by setting appropriate work for them. 'Fatigue also is caused by work unsuitable to the individual. Suitable work reduces fatigue on account of the pleasure derived from the work itself. Thus the two causes of fatigue are unsuitable work and premature interruption of work.' Both stumbling blocks are familiar to working women and mothers." (pg. 102)
I think this woman knew a thing or two and I want to read about what those things are.
This next quote would be good to just sit with and reflect on for a while.
"Everything set before us can be offered to God, but we are permitted to ask for help, from him or from our friends, so that we have the space to restore our right relation to work. There is nothing lost by turning some tasks over to automation or to others...the goal is to have a little space and silence to do at least some work single-mindedly.
"Offering out exterior work to God can help form us to offer our interior life to him. The physical repetition of a Rosary or a daily cycle of prayers is meant to begin a work that is not abandoned when the beads are put away or the Angelus bells stop ringing." (pg. 102)
The author of this article reminds me that my whole life can be offered to God, and the mundane chores I complete could be a key way of entering into that continuous prayer.
"Offering our smallest work is out opportunity to practice holding nothing back from him. If we can invite [God] into our dullest moments, our least exciting tasks, and our monotony, we will have fewer spaces where we feel abandoned by him or that we are tempted to hide from him. Our quiet, not-obviously-interesting work is practice in remembering that our whole lives are his. These small challenges prepare us to extend the harder invitation - asking God into our moments of weakness, shame, and sin." (pg. 103)
13. "The School of Leisure" by Jennifer Frey
This article revisits ideas found in Josef Pieper's "Leisure: The Basis of Culture", but then specifically argues that we should take Mary as our model of leisure/contemplation and, further, that women should spend leisure time in study.
"Contemplative study is done for the sake of truth alone, which is the good of the intellect. Study is important to Aquinas, because he argues that our desire for the truth finds its ultimate fulfillment in the beatific vision." (pg. 93)
This is the kind of study she's talking about, not the useful studying that results in grades or acquiring a specific, useful skill for a certain purpose. And this is the connection Frey makes between contemplative study and prayer:
" Out contemplative attention is a moral and spiritual capacity - it is ultimately the substance of our prayer life. In study, we develop the habits of attention that allow for a richer prayer life and intimacy with God. The first and most essential fruits of study...are in the interior life. Our study informs that way we see the world, allowing us to achieve a deeper, more penetrating vision of reality, and this in turn enables us to cultivate the dispositions that regulate our appetite to know and seek the truth. It is in the fulfillment of this desire for truth, which study sharpens, that our perfect happiness consists." (p. 94)
I like the author's connection between children, who are free from the adult understanding of work, their "leisure" to be bored, and how that freedom allows them to marvel at the world around them. I remember feeling wowed by different things before, and even now finding delight in how delighted little toddlers are at inspecting new things. It makes me yearn for a little more space in my head to let such things happen. "Workism forgets that our highest goal and purpose is nothing more or less than rest in the divine life." (p. 96) I think children are much closer to that resting in the divine life than I am; no wonder Jesus loves the children so much!
I'm ending this reflection with a quote that I thought was a little spicy. I like it!
"It is sometimes suggested that women do not need to study beyond the practical arts because their main goal is to manage the household and to raise children. This is sometimes proclaimed by the very same people who hold Mary up as the ideal woman. And yet, tradition understands and reveres Mary not as a domestic manager but as a model of the contemplative life, a woman for whom study and contemplation are essential pursuits. If this is not the highest expression of her feminine genius, it is hard to fathom what is." (p. 96)
12. "The Joy of Thinking" by Emily Stimpson Chapman
This woman's story spoke to me and my own experience - I wasn't quite at the level of overachieving that she was, but I recognize in myself some of the drive that she had to excel at everything.
"I haven't grown bored or tired of reading about Catholicism, writing about Catholicism, or thinking about Catholicism. I don't know how one could. Catholicism, as my husband says, is like honey; it gets all over everything. It gets all over history and friendship, sex and suffering, motherhood and marriage, food nad fashion, literature and politics, even home design. It touches everything, illuminates everything, transforms everything." (p. 86)
I think this line is spot-on. There's always something new to learn about Catholicism, but more importantly - and excitingly - there's always some way to grow spiritually.
I think this was the essay where I put the book down to look at my husband and say something along the lines of, "I'm glad I never lost my love of reading." I remember hearing from several people that they didn't like to read anymore - or at least for a long time - because of all the reading they had to do in college for classes. That always saddened me, but this author shows why this is something that can happen.
"I didn't just find my joy in reading again because I was reading the right material. I found it because I was reading for the right reason. I wasn't pursuing a career. I wasn't seeking a certain grade. I wasn't doing what my parents, professors, or bosses wanted me to do. I was reading because I wanted to read. I was reading because I wanted to learn more and understand more. I wanted knowledge. I wanted wisdom. I wanted to expand my vision of the beautiful, broken world God had made and see every last atom of it as he sees it." (pp. 86-87) That's a nice bit of writing write there, too.
Finally, I liked the three takeaways she leaves for readers. "Keep your eyes on Christ, study what you love for its own sake, and give the work at hand your full attention. Do all that, and you won't have to look for joy in the intellectual life. It will find you." (p. 88) This line summarizes three beautifully fleshed-out paragraphs on page 87.
11. "The Vocation to Transformation" by Amanda Achtman
This essay reminded me of the delight of loving to learn. It is part hunger and part anticipation and part joy at having encountered something new. This essay was more experience than exposition. It was interesting to have such a different feel from the majority of the other essays, which followed a more conventional essay style. I guess Achtman's essay was a little bit different than usual, like what I found GK Chesterton's essays to be.
Now I want to read some solid Chestertonian essays. I also want to find out what delightful works of Polish literature I've been missing out on. She talked about Poland, and I keep hearing and reading about how incredible Poland is. I figure a country with such a strong Catholic culture HAS to have some fantastic literature.
Anyway, all Google searches aside, I had just one takeaway quote from this essay.
"By having a wide range of experiences, we see that the Christian life is not reducible but has many expressions. It is refreshing to discover that I do not define my own concept of existence and meaning, and thank God for that. What makes life meaningful is that we are not our own but rather belong to God, who loved us into existence. We also live in continuity with a great tradition, and we belong to one another and are a gift for each other...Being available to study a panorama of sanctity gives inspiration and zeal for the day-to-day ways we are called to serve others." (pp. 79-80)
10. "Benedictine Spirituality and the Mysteries of God" by Elizabeth Scalia
I liked that this essay has me rethinking my adoration hour. I'd pulled away from journaling because it felt like it was too much of me talking, not enough listening. She talked about how writing during lectio divina really helped her out. I think going back to writing during prayer could be a good thing.
I liked that this essay did a good job of making real the connection between daily mundane work and our prayer life. I like especially that last part of the quote here:
"Having already discovered how remarkably ordinary work in the house and garden could help free the mind, permitting reason, imagination, and logic to flower seamlessly into contemplation, I found the Benedictine motto of ora et labora completely recognizable not simply as a mode of discipline but as a description of how our work feeds our prayer and our prayer ultimately instructs our work, especially when we realize - and it's a very Benedictine understanding - that we have no work of our own, that whatever task is before us is, ultimately, God's work, God's assignment, God's will placed before us." (p. 72)
And, with the author spending time talking about Benedictine spirituality and hospitality, she's got me thinking yet again of how I need to dive into Benedict's Rule - which I recently rediscovered in one of my boxes of books.
9. "Marriage, Motherhood, and the Mind" by Stephanie Gray Connors
I didn't feel like I got too much from this essay, but she had some food for thought. "Listening to one person in the context of another who disagrees provides an opportunity for our own minds to clarify inconsistencies, fortify weaknesses, embolden strengths, and so forth." (p.62) I like what she says here; I totally believe she's right; but I also hate opposition. That is something I know I ought to work on and yet definitely don't want to work on. Maybe one of these days I'll pull up a podcast by someone who has very different views from me, but it's not happening today.
8. "An Integrated Mind and Heart" by Sr. Theresa Aletheia Noble
This article focused on integration of the person - living out our lives not with soul and mind and heart separated, but integrated into each other. This is especially important for our spiritual lives.
This was another essay that mainly provided some food for thought. Noble spent a good amount of time explaining that women only recently have had their intellects taken seriously. I remember that during my first reading of this essay, some of her statements on this topic created a resistance in me. I have often scorned the insistent voices of feminism that have said there's so much progress left to be made - that has not been my experience, I've argued internally. I have always felt respected and like my ideas have been taken seriously. I haven't felt the effects of sexism in work or school. I suppose I'm one of the very few fortunate in that sense.
But, skimming these pages again has made me more accepting of Noble's observations. I do think it IS true that "Women's widespread participation in the intellectual life of the Church is thus still in a fairly nascent stage." (p. 57) Of course, I might find myself agreeing with this statement because I read it recently. I notice that I struggle to not take on the viewpoint of whatever voice I'm reading.
I wonder what a more widespread female participation in the Church's intellectual life would look like. I imagine that God will call the saints that are needed for every age, and some saints are going to be intellectual women. I wonder what my role in this might be. It certainly can't be to develop my intellect for my own sake. I pray that God will show me how to share my gifts and mind with others as my life continues.
7. "Becoming a Bibliophile" by Haley Stewart
Well done, Haley Stewart. Well done. I liked this essay and I think she wrote it well. Even though some of the ideas she shared weren't new to me, I loved hearing her voice come through her writing.
I want to develop voice. That would be really cool. I loved her starting with and returning to the idea that our lives - and our intellectual lives - are relational. This has been my experience with getting some sort of handle on most of the classics I've read. I'll just leave a bunch of quotes here.
"The intellectual life is a continuing conversation. In conversation with God in prayer, he speaks truth to our heart. In conversation with his creation, we cultivate our minds by reflecting on the beauty around us. And in conversation with others, we learn from their insights what we had not yet discovered ourselves...Human beings are relational, and the intellectual life is relational too. We learn and grow in this relational dialogue." (p. 46)
"It's also important to stretch ourselves to read for more than entertainment. To really cultivate the intellectual life, we may have to dig a little bit deeper. We will have to befriend books that push us out of our comfort zone. Reading books that challenge our minds and force us to wrestle with difficult ideas, slow down to absorb beautiful imagery, or re-read before mastering isn't for the faint of heart! ...One tactic to develop our intellects with good books is to reach for books in different genres than we usually gravitate to." (p. 49)
I like this paragraph because it confirms me in my decision to try to read less fluff fiction this year and more substance. I probably made that decision after reading this essay, but I'm not sure about timing. It reminds me of a "Read Aloud Revival" podcast episode or two in which the hostess talks about using a bingo-style card with different genres to get kids to read a variety of books over the summer. I like that idea a lot.
"We live in a culture that focuses on productivity and measurability, and these ideals can carry over to our reading lives. For instance, there are many tools available to help you reach your goals to read a certain number of books each year. These aids can be motivating and there's certainly a place for them! but being a bibliophile is about much more than reaching measurable goals to check books off of a list. The reading life is something alive and growing like a garden, not sterile and efficient like a factory. the goal of devoting time to books isn't that we can be more productive but that we can become more human! Reading, then, should be a habit of joy and wonder. It should not feel like something we clock in to do and then clock out from with relief when we have completed our allotted reading time.
"That isn't to say, of course, that reading is always immediately gratifying or that it doesn't require exertion. But if there is nothing fun about reading, we're doing it wrong. We eat to feed our bodies, we read to feed our minds--and the this experience should be one of festivity." (pg. 51)
And finally, I love the flavor of this quote.
"We should read books that make our hearts dance as well as ones that we know are 'good for us.' Imagine our reading life as a feast set before us: meaty dishes, vitamin-filled vegetables, and sustaining starchy potatoes that will stick to our ribs. But also puddings and pies! cheese and toast! Strawberries and cream! We should joyfully savor our books, remembering that the reading life should be festive as well as nourishing and that every good meal is to be shared - with friends across the tables or in the pages of our books." (p. 52)
This part also makes me feel good about having several quasi-book clubs that I participate in. I do find discussing books and ideas to be very life-giving. I pray I only grow my gratitude for chances to talk to bookish friends.
6. "Intellectual Life, From Theory to Practice" by Jackie Francois Angel
"What if those of us who are missionaries, stay-at-home moms, retirees, consecrated women, working women, single women, etc. took great care to form our intellectual life not because if helped us attain degrees but because it helped us to know God and deepen our humanity, which, in turn, would help us rightly love ourselves and others?
"While we absolutely need professional intellectuals who have master's degrees and PhDs and teach in universities and write academic books and articles, we must not be persuaded into thinking that because we are not reading to attain a degree our intellect is not worth forming. On the contrary, every single disciple is called to grow continually in the intellectual life. Not only would this create great saints in each one of us, but it would, in turn, create more saints in those who surround us. While a professional intellectual may tell us about God, we desperately need people who profoundly know God...Not every disciple needs a PhD, but every disciple needs the truth, beauty, and goodness of God to dwell in his or her heart, mind, body, and soul." (pg. 41)
Learning only for my own satisfaction is a major pitfall I see in myself. I desire to pursue the intellectual life with more humility and generosity.
5. "Holy Boldness and the Feminine Mind" by Rachel Harkins Ullmann
This one was good for opening my eyes to the uphill battles women still must fight in our society today. Juggling work and raising kids is a discussion my husband and I have already had multiple times, even now, before we have children. There's a lot to navigate - the world needs skilled workers and SLPs like me, but children need mothers, too. How does one find a balance?
The author's description of single, working Catholic women resonated with me as well. I have often felt like I didn't really have a "home" in my parish because I wasn't married and established with kids, but had long since aged out of the youth group. Single working women really do want to be welcomed and taken seriously in their communities. I think Ullmann is correct in bringing up the idea that women are going to have to be leaders in making this happen. If we don't advocate for ourselves, will there any change?
4. "Saints and the Intellect" by Meg Hunter-Kilmer
I super skimmed this one; I think I remember being both troubled and fascinated by Hunter-Kilmer's descriptions of St. Edith Stein and Bl. Concepcion Cabrera de Armida. Bl. Concepcion was especially fascinating to me as a married woman and a mystic, who by loving God better (and experiencing a mystical marriage to Jesus!), learned to love her husband more. "There was no conflict between her love of God and her love of Pancho." (p. 25)
I'm looking forward to reading more about St. Edith Stein - I snuck a few books about/by her from my sister's shelf recently, likely because she's been mentioned multiple times throughout this book. It would be good to get a saint book in my reading diet sometime this year, and maybe St. Edith Stein will be the subject.
"The very first Christian woman pondered the things of God in her heart. She wrote poetry so majestic that it's recited daily throughout the world . She used her mind, as a woman of prayer and as the Mother of God. And while there are as yet only four female Doctors of the Church, there have always been women seeking God through the life of the mind, women who couldn't have attained holiness had they not embraced both faith and reason. For St. Edith Stein, it was a PhD in philosophy that led her to the faith. For Bl. Concepcion Cabrera de Armida, it was unshakeable devotion to daily prayer that led her to a profound understanding of theology. For us, it may be an academic degree, a research project, a stack of books on the bedside table, a novel written in the margins of life, or a commitment to Scripture study that goes beyond skimming that Sunday's Gospel. It may be study that leads us to God and it may be God who leads us to study. But whatever the order, the end result of running after God in prayer and study can only be greater joy and peace, deeper faith, and stronger hope, whatever we might suffer." (pg. 29)
This passage makes me feel like great things can be achieved in my intellectual formation. I am encouraged.
3. "Healing and Knowing the Truth" by Sr. Miriam James Heidland
This is an essay that's good to revisit after having read later-placed essays. I often hear about Sr. Miriam in the context of healing in the Catholic podcasts I listen to, but her words help really make sense of the "fragmentation" and "integration" that other essayists spoke about. Simply put, it is one thing to know about God in our heads, and another to experience Him in our hearts. We may know God loves us in our heads, but not know it in our hearts. That must be part of the "feminine genius" that all these lovely authoresses have been talking about.
What is "feminine genius", anyway? I think that what all these women have been trying to say is that it is "that essence which only a woman can contribute". We can try to define that essence - creativity, integration - or leave it as the ethereal, nebulous term and all that it implies. But I think that's kind of what people are driving at. Maybe there isn't some concrete definition for it. I wonder. But not enough to pick up JPII's "Letter to Women" that everyone has been quoting.
2. "The Virtues and the Intellectual Life" by Susanna Spencer
This was another super-skimmed essay. But then I got into it more because I'd taken notes of passages that struck me. This was a great early essay because it describes the foundation necessary for developing one's intellectual life - and that foundation is virtue. What she says absolutely makes sense; we need temperance and prudence, as well as other virtues, if we're going to be consistent and commit to developing our intellects. She made understanding virtues and vices in the light of the intellectual life very simple to comprehend. Virtue is a firm and habitual disposition to do the good; firm and habitual dispositions to do the work involved with expanding the intellect is necessary if it's going to happen at all.
"There are not specifically masculine or feminine virtues" - thank you for saying that! I think I've run into people who argued to the contrary and that has definitely rubbed me the wrong way! - "What makes a virtue distinctive for a woman is that she has those virtues as a woman: she is courageous as a woman, she is patient as a woman, she is prudent as a woman, and she is studious as a woman. Further, her virtues are distinctive because they are her virtues and no one else's." (p. 9)
"Studiousness is one of the essential virtues for pursuing the intellectual life. Simply defined, it is care for important knowledge and is 'about the desire and study in the pursuit of knowledge.' It is the virgtue that helps us care to know the right things and stay focused on those right things. There are many ways we can fail to be studious, such as through curiosity or sloth. The vice of curiosity is not just a desire to know things but to seek to know things that are not important to know or not good to know, or to know things at the wrong time and in the wrong way." (p. 12)
"Another vice that makes it harder to be studious is that of sloth or acedia. While some may think of sloth as merely being lazy, this is not the case. Sloth is deeper and more insidious than mere laziness. It is having sorrow over the good in your life. It is being surrounded by blessings - such as a good job, a comfortable home, healthy food, a family, God's free gift of grace - and desiring something other than these good things. It is what makes you feel oppressed by your life and duties and wish you could do anything but that. It is the temptation that plants the idea to waste your time and leads you to create the habit of doomscrolling when you should be reading a book or writing an essay...It is poison to any joy the Lord is offering you in your everyday, repetitive life." (pp. 12-13)
"We should look at all we allow to enter our minds through articles, websites, books, movies, shows, and music and ask if it is helping to form us to be more studious or to be more susceptible to temptations of curiosity and sloth." (p. 13)
1. "Foundations of the Intellectual Life" by Sr. Josephine Garrett
This is the essay to start a book like this with. In it's simplest summarization, love of God is the foundation of the intellectual life; we learn to love God by making space in our lives for silence to hear God; by praying to (conversing with) God; and by desiring (I skimmed; desiring to learn what God wants to teach us, I'm guessing).
"Right order is key. If desire to learn precedes the cultivation of silence and the life of prayer, we run the risk of making idols of our intellectual lives. Do not hop around the golden calf idol for the likes of men. You will be exhausted, frustrated, and spiritually barren, without fruit. Fix the gaze of your desires on the Beloved, as he has fixed his gaze on you, the apple of his eye." (pp. 5-6)
Overall Thoughts
Great book; highly recommend to Catholic women.
I have been frustrated in the past with conferences, talks, and materials aimed specifically at Catholic women. This is one of the first major works I've encountered that didn't make me feel like someone was pandering to me or writing off the rigor of the Catholic intellectual tradition in favor of feel-good messages like "Give yourself grace" and "find God in your everyday tasks". I wanted the richness and fullness of the intellectual depth of our faith, and this book encourages women to get to it. I don't know if I'm up to the task, but I'm looking forward to seeing where God leads me.
