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I'm not generally the sort to be found reading spiritual texts. Hence it is somewhat surprising that I've recently co-edited a volume on Karl Barth's spiritual writings . But, as luck / fate / providence would have it, I recently dug out of the to-read pile this volume on acedia . Demythologized (as it were), we're really talking about reflections on the meaningfulness of life and especially about how it can be challenging to find it meaningful. For whatever reason, I read this in the space of two afternoons with temperatures hanging around triple digits in Central Missouri while in the middle of a week of outdoor living at Boy Scout camp. What follows is a passage that jumped out at me. As usual, italics are original to the text and bold is mine. Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B., The Noonday Devil: Acedia, The Unnamed Evil of Our Times (Ignatius Press, 2015), pp. 99–101. Ockham views freedom as the exercise of spontaneous and arbitrary will out of a posture of true in