What Does Spiritual Apathy Mean

Here are four steps you can take to combat spiritual apathy.

Why is apathy a sin?

Apathy has long been denounced by Christians as a lack of love and devotion to God and his efforts. This version of indifference is known as Sloth, and it is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. The phrase was coined by Clemens Alexandrinus to refer to Christian thinkers who aspired to virtue.

After World War I, when it was one of the several manifestations of “shell shock,” the current idea of apathy became more well-known. When soldiers returned from combat, many developed a sense of detached numbness and apathy to normal social interaction after living in trenches under bombing and machine gun fire, and seeing battlefields strewn with dead and crippled companions.

John Dos Passos, a novelist from the United States, stated in 1950: “Apathy is one of the typical responses of any living creature when confronted with sensations that are too intense or complex to cope with. Comprehension is the antidote to apathy.”

What is the spirit of indifference?

What does it mean to be unconcerned? To be indifferent about an issue means that it makes no difference which way you look at it; one method isn't more valuable or important than the other. There is a lack of excitement, concern, or interest in something or someone.

From time to time, we're all ambivalent about certain issues. For lunch, do we want chicken or hamburgers? So, if we like both, we'll say it doesn't make a difference. Would we rather go shopping today or tomorrow? It doesn't seem to make a difference.

These are only a few examples of indifferent attitudes that have minimal impact. Today's lesson emphasizes the significance of paying attention to the things that really important.

So, once again, we refer to J. Kalas Ellsworth's ideas and thoughts in his work “We use the Roman soldiers as examples of the mistake of being indifferent at a time when full attention was required in “Seven Words To The Cross: A Lenten Study For Adults,” as we use them as examples of the mistake of being indifferent at a time when full attention was required.

In the words and acts of the soldiers assigned to Jesus' execution in John 19: 23-27, we find an attitude of indifference. For whatever reason, they were unconcerned with an occurrence that was undoubtedly routine for them.

The things of Jesus, namely the pieces of clothes, were their primary concern for the afternoon. They were particularly interested in acquiring his garment, which would have been expensive due to the lack of seams and sewn-together areas.

But, while they were preoccupied with the tunic, Jesus was dying on the cross directly above them. However, we observe complete disregard for anything or anyone other than their own interests.

I invite each of us to dig deep within ourselves throughout Lent and beyond to discover if we have any apathy toward others or, more significantly, toward God.

These Roman soldiers were not only harsh and callous, but also thoughtless. Can we think about the apathy we have as a culture toward other people's feelings while we consider these troops' insensitivity to pain and suffering?

We may not become willfully nasty and brutal, but we may just become oblivious to the sorrow that surrounds us.

Our spiritual journey might sometimes be marred by indifference. It can happen when we hear the Holy Spirit's voice but are too preoccupied to respond. It might happen when we are too preoccupied with our own concerns to hear our brothers and sisters' cries.

It might happen when we are guilty of wrongdoings in our life but do not change our ways. The Holy Spirit's voice, the screams of the poor, and personal convictions are becoming less and less frequent.

We tend to lose touch with the personal call that God has put on our hearts, and our vision isn't as clear as it once was.

Could it be that we've removed our hands off Jesus's and replaced our passion for following him with apathy? If that's the case, it's easy to see ourselves rolling the dice at the foot of the cross.

It's possible that we've heard God's call on our lives; we understand how important it is to treat others as Jesus did, but we're simply too preoccupied. Preoccupation can quickly develop into indifference if we are not careful.

God is the one who keeps trying to break into our life, banging on the door of our busyness, and we keep shutting him out.

We are not violent or unkind; we simply have other things on our minds. We're attempting to figure out how to deal with the situation “We can wear “tunics” without shredding them in our life.

This scenario in front of the cross has a certain irony to it. You may recall that a woman was healed after touching the hem of Jesus' robe a few months ago (Luke 8:43-48). The soldiers were now wearing the same outfit.

We know the piece of fabric didn't contain any magic. However, I'm curious if any of those guys required physical healing that day, either for themselves or for someone back home.

How close they were to the source of all healing, to the One who had come to mend the brokenness, to cast out the darkness, to provide peace, and to build an eternal relationship!

Is apathy a mental illness?

When you lack drive to do anything or don't care about what's going on around you, you're said to be apathetic. Mental health issues, Parkinson's illness, and Alzheimer's disease can all cause apathy. It frequently lasts for a long time. You may lack the motivation to perform anything that requires you to think or feel. The word “pathos” comes from the Greek word for “passion” or “feeling.” Apathy is the absence of those emotions.

It isn't the same as depression, however it might be difficult to distinguish between the two. Both disorders are associated with a sense of “blahness” about life. It's also not despair or fury. You don't feel much of anything other than these emotions. Things that used to make you happy are no longer exciting to you. You are no longer motivated to reach your objectives.

Everyone loses interest in things at some point in their lives, but when it happens frequently, it may have a negative impact on your relationships, employment, and capacity to enjoy life. Treatment can make a great difference, so get help from your doctor or a mental health expert.

What can cause apathy?

Although apathy does not necessarily have an obvious cause, it can be a sign of a variety of neurological and mental disorders.

A study from 2011 found that abnormalities in the frontal lobe of the brain are linked to apathetic symptoms. Researchers have recently discovered evidence linking apathy to two critical brain regions, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and ventral striatum, as well as other frontal and middle brain regions.

Situational apathy

Apathy syndrome is defined by the American Psychological Association as a pattern of emotional indifference that can develop in disaster survivors or persons kept as prisoners of war.

Detaching emotionally after a tragedy or other traumatic experience may appear to be a useful method to safeguard your well-being and avoid further hardship. As a result, you could have trouble connecting with others or accessing and expressing your emotions.

Teenagers who are seeking to find their identity and narrow down their future ambitions may become apathetic as they try on and discard identities and interests that don't seem right. This apathy can be linked to the following:

Teen moods and thought patterns can be influenced by changing hormones and brain development, but long-term emotional detachment and apathy, just like in adults, can indicate a more serious problem.

What does apathy feel like?

Apathy is defined by sentiments of disinterest and emotionlessness. 1 The term is frequently used to denote a lack of concern or care, but in the context of mental health, a loss of interest in many elements of life events is frequently an indication of a disorder.

What does spiritual dryness feel like?

Spiritual dryness, a state of feeling exhausted or empty, can occur during wilderness seasons. Reading the Bible and praying feel rote and monotonous. Your enthusiasm and enthusiasm for God and life have diminished. You're perplexed, befuddled, and exhausted.

What does it mean to be spiritually cold?

We've grown accustomed to live in a world where only what can be seen and touched is real. Making it simple to trust what our eyes can see and our hands can feel. Mindfulness and compassion practice can assist us in choosing to view the outside world from a perspective that is beneficial to our spiritual well-being.

Our soul, like our bodies, gets tired and run down and requires rest from time to time. When we stray from a consistent diet of love and gratitude, our spirit, like our bodies, begins to lack the appropriate nutrients that allow energy to flow. Our ability to choose love in difficult situations necessitates a healthy relationship to our soul, just as walking up a flight of stairs necessitates a certain level of fitness.

As someone who has suffered from depression for many years, I've learned that compassion can be the difference between feeling broken and having a spiritual cold. The spiritual symptoms of a fever may manifest as anxiety over paying your bills, rather than the physical symptoms of a fever keeping you awake all night. The physical aches and pains that make a cold so unpleasant are now manifested as feelings of being unloved and inadequate. Nagging, self-deprecating thoughts accompany headaches. It's time to take a break if serving others no longer brings you joy and you're starting to feel like you're doing thankless work. That's the tickling in your throat telling you to be kind with yourself and get some rest, because a negative attitude is just as contagious as a cold.

When our souls are in good shape, we are glad for our friends, social media is enjoyable, we can let go of what no longer serves us, and we can envision our future through a beautiful, optimistic lens. If we ignore our bodies' symptoms of exhaustion and don't relax, our bodies will eventually take control and shut everything down, whether we have the time for a break or not. It is not in our nature to be harsh or callous, just as it is not in our nature to be sick and frail.

As I mentioned in my previous article, just because something doesn't have a name doesn't make it any less real. Love, gratitude, and compassion must be considered as soul medicine. Because you can't package it or buy it over the counter anymore, pharmaceutical corporations aren't interested in disclosing this information to you. Love, on the other hand, can heal; gratitude may relieve worry; and compassion is nature's valium. If you take it every day, morning and night, I assure you'll see a return of your natural delight.

I'm writing this in the hopes that anyone going through a difficult period might change their mindset from fear to love.

As always, please let me know what you think in the comments section.

What causes spiritual emptiness?

Spiritual emptiness was a major problem in the educated European middle class, according to Austrian philosopher/educator Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). He claimed that European culture had become “empty of spirit” and “ignorant of the demands, the conditions, that are required for the life of the spirit” in his 1919 lectures. Due to the “absence of will from the life of thought,” people experienced a “spiritual emptiness” and their thinking became distinguished by a “lazy passivity.” People would “let their thoughts to take hold of them” in modern Europe, according to Steiner, and these thoughts would increasingly be filled with abstraction and “pure, natural scientific thinking.” The educated middle classes began to think in a “devoid of spirit” manner, with their thoughts getting “dimmer and darker,” and their spirits becoming increasingly empty.

According to Louis Dupré, a Yale University philosophy professor, the “spiritual emptiness of our day is a sign of its religious poverty.” Many people, he claims, “never experience any emptiness: they are too busy to feel much absence of any kind”; they only realize their spiritual emptiness when “painful personal experiences — the death of a loved one, the breakdown of a marriage, the alienation of a child, the failure of a business” shock them into reassessing their sense of meaning.

Juvenile violence has been linked to spiritual emptiness. In his 1999 book How Juvenile Violence Begins: Spiritual Emptiness, John C. Thomas claims that kids in impoverished indigenous communities who are feeling meaningless may turn to fighting and aggressive crime to fill their void. In his 1999 book Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, Cornell University professor James Garbarino believes that “neglect, humiliation, spiritual emptiness, alienation, anger, and access to guns are a few of the factors common to violent boys.” According to Garbarino, a professor of human development, violent males have “alienation from positive role models” and “a spiritual vacuum that fosters hopelessness.” The violent fantasy of American gun culture seduces these children, providing negative role models of tough, aggressive males who use power to obtain what they want. He thinks that giving boys a “feeling of purpose” and “spiritual anchors” that can “anchor boys in empathy and socially engaged moral thought” can benefit them.

Addiction is frequently linked to spiritual emptiness, particularly by Christian-influenced addiction organizations and counsellors. One of the effects of alcoholism, according to Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, is that heavy drinkers experience a spiritual emptiness. In his book Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception, published in 1997, Abraham J. Twerski contends that when people are spiritually empty, they typically turn to addictive activities to fill the emptiness. Unlike an empty stomach, which is a distinct sensation, spiritual emptiness is difficult to pinpoint, leaving persons with a feeling of “vague disquiet.” While some people try to fill the void by excessively having sex, overeating, or abusing drugs or alcohol, these habits only provide brief relief. When a person in crisis because of spiritual emptiness is able to stop one addiction, such as obsessive sex, they frequently replace it with another, such as gambling or overeating.