I've been following your blog for a couple of months, enjoying your discussion of the interface between your faith and your writing. It's prompted me to choose a slightly weird topic for my guest blog post: Acedia.Acedia is sloth--depression, disengagement, drowning in a sea of triviality. It was reading William H Willimon's Sinning Like a Christian. A New Look at Seven Deadly Sins that prompted my interest in acedia and I'm drawing a lot of this post from my notes on his book.
Sloth is the opposite of joy. Willimon calls it "a slow, cowardly suicide" (p.93). It is a turning away, a refusal to care.
You can't be passionate and slothful--and this is where I slide into talking about romance books, reading and writing them.
Romance novels are passionate. They are about the risks of intimacy and its triumph.
To read a romance novel is to celebrate the triumph of love, of reaching beyond yourself to be open to another person.
When people dismiss romance novels as escapism they make me angry. Romance novels challenge us to believe and live the power of love.
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Duty will bring them together—and tear them apart!
As a guardian angel, Mischa must protect the one man who may be able to bring about lasting peace to the Middle East. As a djinni, Rafe must fulfill the wishes of a terrorist leader. Their duties colliding, Mischa and Rafe become foes, but the heat between them is undeniable.
When the terrorist learns that a guardian angel stands between him and his greatest wish, he orders his djinni to remove her. Taking creative license, Rafe spirits her away to his private oasis, where she will be unable to protect the peacemaker.
Beyond their mutual desire, they find common ground in honor and loneliness. Passion quickly grows into love. But it’s soon clear to Rafe that love cannot be bound, and Mischa must be true to her life’s purpose. Even if Rafe must sacrifice his own taste of freedom to grant hers…
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Thanks, Alice, for this chance to think aloud about why I enjoy reading and writing romance.
Fascinating post. I've never thought of sloth that way, but you're right on.
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Thanks for letting me post on such an odd topic! I just couldn't resist. When I read this definition of sloth it stuck like a burr in my mind. It rang true because when I'm happy its easy-peasy to work hard. Fortunately I'm happy when I'm writing :)
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