Online Reporter
Matters of Faith
Now firmly planted in midlife, I find myself in frequent conversations with friends and colleagues five to 10 years younger than me who are encountering new challenges around their calling and ambitions.
In the exciting years of early adulthood, your trajectory can feel like it’s up and to the right — a degree, a new job, a promotion, a new opportunity.
Life seems ever-expanding in those early years of work, marriage, and child-rearing.
But at the outset of midlife, the arc begins to bend.
The possibilities shrink.
There’s a simmering uneasiness, an angst at feeling hemmed in by the decisions that have brought you to this point.
Limitations show up, closing in on you, causing your early ambitions and aspirations in your career or ministry to bump up against the ceiling of reality.
And now you feel stuck.
Stuck in a job that once suited your skills, with responsibilities you’ve outgrown.
Stuck with fewer opportunities to move up, to make more, to find more fulfilment, to deploy all the gifts and talents you want to offer.
Stuck with the wear and tear of a marriage finishing its second decade or entering its third, with no clear path for maintaining or reestablishing the close connection you had at first.
Stuck with newly felt obligations toward aging parents, wondering how best to honour your father and mother while being a father or mother worthy of honour to your kids who are growing up fast.
People in this season often wish they could escape their current situation and find the new job, or new city, or new church that might bring fresh resolution to present frustration, but they realise every new opportunity might upend life for the whole family.
Noonday Demon
The peril for anyone in this situation is acedia. Acedia is a weariness of soul — a spirit of apathy — that leads to detachment from life, even when we remain engaged in regular activities. In the Christian tradition, it’s the forerunner to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins.
Acedia may begin with being tired of day-to-day work, but it manifests most acutely when we grow tired in our souls.
We’re weary because everything is wearying. As it persists, we turn away from the summons and reality of divine love.
We lose our grip on a higher meaning and purpose for our work. We turn inward — too tired to love, to even want to love.
The monastics called this “the noonday demon.”
Imagine yourself in a desert monastery, most of your time spent in solitude. Midday is when the sun is highest and brightest, sending temperatures soaring toward suffocation, with shade as the only escape from the heat.
All that can be done is the usual routine of working with your hands and praying the Psalms. This withering experience, day after day, led many a monk to reconsider his life choices, to wonder about fruitful avenues now foreclosed, and to worry his gifts and talents were wasted in such a wasteland.
The arc of midlife is perfect for the noonday demon’s tricks. When we reach this life stage, we don’t succumb to a haze of thoughtlessness.
On the contrary, our minds go spinning, filled with thoughts —some unwelcome. We daydream about life in a different city.
We fantasise about a better church. We keep checking to see if the perfect job (or just a better job, something different) might open up.
The noonday demon would have us smile at fantasy and frown at reality.
Because that’s when we become impatient, resentful, and frustrated.
Oozing from us is an attitude of discontentment.
Self-Sabotage and Self-Diminishment
I’ve seen a number of people fall under the sway of the noonday demon, only to sabotage themselves — either by making impulsive decisions that call into question their character and wisdom, or by growing so cynical and resentful they harm their prospects at being hired anywhere else.
For others, it’s not self-sabotage, but self-diminishment.
The talons of acedia grip the heart, and spiritual anemia robs them of the energy required for love.
They put up walls around the heart.
They shrug (whatever!) at the people they work with. They lose any passion for loving those entrusted to their care.
They no longer care about either learning contentment in every situation or leaning into holy discontent when they sense the Lord is calling them to something more.
They settle for a lovelessness that leaves them less themselves.
Avoiding the Noonday Demon
How can we avoid self-sabotage and self-diminishment?
First, remember we’re Christians, not Stoics. We don’t stuff the hurts and disappointments deep down inside, as if they don’t matter.
This fallen world groans. So do we. The ache is real. We do ourselves no favours by denying pain or minimising its effects on our spirit.
Second, be aware of the traps. All around us are opportunities designed to lessen the discomfort of this season.
Some people are drawn to the thrill of new adventure, leading to rash decisions and the typical midlife crisis, with unwise or sinful choices that leave lasting repercussions.
More than a few respond by hopping from job to job, never reckoning with the reality that thorns and thistles show up everywhere.
The grass may seem greener (and sometimes it is!), but there are always weeds you cannot see, and sometimes it’s best to stick with the thorns you know instead of being surprised by a hidden briar patch. – TGC.
