href="#u0d1dff22-c172-50e0-ba58-ae1029ab627b">Chapter Nine
“When I Found Your Words, I Devoured Them”
“How Long Must I Carry Sorrow in My Soul”
“Worthy Is the Lamb That Was Slain”
“Today This Scripture Passage Is Fulfilled in Your Hearing”
“My Father Was a Wandering Aramean”
“Go in Peace, Glorifying the Lord by Your Life”
Chapter One
In Praise of (Some) Boredom
When I was young, my family went on what seemed like an indeterminable number of road trips through Florida. Constantly approaching boredom, my mind would create ways to entertain itself as we cruised past the swampy landscape of the state. In the morning, the rising sun slowly illuminating the Florida Turnpike provided a welcome distraction. In the afternoon, when the inevitable thunderstorms struck, I watched with wonder as raindrops on the windows expanded and then dissipated. On those rare occasions in which we left the state, I delighted in the changing colors of trees and soil that met us as we passed into the rich clay of southern Georgia. On these road trips, boredom was not something to be avoided at all costs. It was an opportunity to let my mind wander through the delights of creation.
We no longer dwell in an era in which boredom is an occasion for the play of the mind. While on the very same road trips that we endured, our children are occupied by portable DVD players, games available on tablet computers, and devices that are connected to the Internet. And even those of us reared before the dawn of the smart phone are taken in by its siren call to escape boredom at all costs. When boredom rears its humdrum head, we check the latest sports scores or our various social media accounts. We escape into the bliss of constant entertainment and, soon enough, the threat of boredom is eliminated.
What happens, though, when we are no longer bored? What art will no longer be created? What novels will remain unwritten? What scientific theories not be explored? Will young men and women cease imagining what it would be like to fall in love with each other, to create a life together?
While the entire human family should undoubtedly ask these questions, we Catholics should be especially concerned about the disappearance of boredom from our lives. Within the Catholic imagination, boredom is not something that is to be avoided but rather is essential to the spiritual life. The Spiritual Canticle, by St. John of the Cross,
