01/29/2018 Finding Peace in An Age of Distraction (Part 2)
Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg and Joshua Hochschild
https://catholicexchange.com/find-mind-peace 7. Blum and Hochschild rightfully encourage a recovery of right judgement by the series of six vital topics.
a. To be purposeful is to discover final causality.
b. To be truthful is to adhere to the objective order of reality.
c. To be reasonable is trust in that image of God imprinted on us all.
d. To be decisive is to take a courageous stand for truth and order.
e. To be wise is to see things as they are.
f. To be Humble is the prerequisite of wisdom.8. There is no substitute for thinking well, but it must surely be preceded by sensing well.
These three orders covered in the three parts of “A Mind at Peace.” : Correlate as well to the tripartite human soul;
a. The will,
b. Appetites and
c. Intellect.
All three are intended to be understood as three aspects of the integrated composite whole of the human person. These truths are obscured by the artifacts of “The Fall Of Man,” which make it difficult to navigate any human era, particularly the present.
“The Fall Of Man,” Or the fall, is a term used in Christianity to describe the transition of the first man and woman from a state of innocent obedience to God to a state of guilty disobedience.
Although not named in the Bible, the doctrine of the fall comes from a biblical interpretation of Genesis chapter 3.
The authors zero in on: “A Mind at Peace”
Of the predominate fault of this age known as “the unnamed evil of our times” is the sin of Acedia.
And our “Present Age,” is an age of “Acedia.”
The word acedia:
In English comes from the Latin, which itself comes from the Greek akèdia, meaning “lack of care”—it originally referred to failure to bury one’s dead.
In the Christian context, it came to mean a kind of indifference to the spiritual life.
“A lack of spiritual energy.”
This last phrase comes from a new book by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times.
It is somewhat appropriate that the principal evil of our time is something almost nobody has even heard of:
Acedia.
Tradition calls acedia the “Noonday Devil,” for like a demon that attacks in the light of day, it comes when we least expect it.
And it is difficult for its victim to recognize it.
The authors recognize and assert that acedia is not just “some kind of laziness, but truly a kind of discouragement, torpor, or despair, a sense of purposelessness and powerlessness.”
Strange indeed are these times:
Disorder and disharmony are proliferating aided and abetted by mass media, education and politics.
It is difficult to know where to turn.
In the middle of Tolkien’s masterwork, “The Lord of the Rings,” there is a conversation between the future king Aragorn and the Third Marshal of the Riddermark, Eomer, son of Eomund.
Eomer called his days in Middle Earth, “days of doubt.”
And we might say the same of today.
He goes on to say “the world has grown strange…. How shall a man judge what to do in such times?”
Aragorn answers.
“As he ever has judged, good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men.
It is man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.”
Blum and Hochschild remind us as Aragorn would.
That even though these are strange and confusing times, we are to judge as we always have.
We must apprehend what living is: “A Mind at Peace,” In our “Present Age.”
a. Discerning what is good, true and beautiful according the objective standard of truth by that natural law written on our hearts.
8. The authors write an afterword concerning the “Peace Beyond.”
In it, they summarize the intention of the book which is to survey the “range of the soul’s powers and virtues.
a. (Of bodily appetites, and exterior and interior senses) in service of the higher (the properly intellectual).
Not only because they are the higher:
b. But because the modern condition poses particular challenges to the mind’s discipline and peace.”
c. They want the reader to understand that mastering the proper order from our lower to higher faculties and putting those in the right order assumes the help of God’s grace.
And although our efforts are required, there is the peace beyond that this book points towards.
d. That peace which is pure gift from God and our part in attaining it is merely humble disposition to receive the gift.
Peace is a gift that follows order:
Let Blum and Hochschild instruct us in the ways of preparing to receive that gift of “Peace.”
By subordinating our lower faculties to our higher faculties and our higher faculties to the providence of God.
Overall, A Mind at Peace is a worthy meditation sorely needed by this generation.
We are in dire need of a recovery of the ability to live well which must be preceded by the proper apprehension of our capable human senses, followed by the right judgments in thinking well.
All this in order that we might come to make decisions for our lives that lead to the “tranquility of order.” This order is not asserted for the sake of the individual alone, but as a preparation for the community life of the domestic church which is the source of the common good.
This book is valuable as an accessible primer to the great Church Doctors, the faithful and wise philosophers whose voices echo with truth across the ages.
It’s about how we ought to order our lives.
To encounter “True Peace,” in the “Age of Distraction.”