I am lecturing on my favorite subject: Pentecostal monks. One monk who has been influential in my life has been Evagrius Ponticus. In preparing my lectures, I came across this thought from R.R. Reno in “Fighting the Noon Day Devil”:

There are no intellectual solutions to spiritual problems. Acedia is fought with spiritual discipline. We hate that. We fantasize about a life without spiritual demands. We are too used to being results-oriented. We want to be free… to be ourselves. We want shapelessness! We don’t want to sharpen our lives. We sculpt our bodies at the gym and leave our souls shapeless.

We are so pragmatic in our church practice we are lazy in our spiritual pursuit. It is hurting us as a church and we don’t recognize it.