◊ Listening to Boredom (continued)

If we can’t face death, we’ll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light. ~ Maya Lin

Courage is Fear that has said its prayers. ~ Karle Wilson Baker

The first victim of boredom is always gratitude. ~ Dan Miller

The Fear of Death (continued)

Daring to listen to the boredom of our lives invariably exposes us to our fear of death and dying, and to the certain but unfaced boundaries that, instead of being cause for overpowering anxiety or resentment, have the potential to give our life meaning and purpose. Hard as this might be to believe, the sages in all religious traditions seem convinced of it. From before the Psalmist informed, “We are little more than breath; our days, fleeting shadows” until after the assertion of Ernest Becker who cautioned against “the denial of death” in his 1973 classic by the same title, wise men and women have warned that we deny death at our own peril. The peril is to exist and not be alive. The unlived life betrays the resistance to face fully the inevitability of one’s own death. Tragically, it’s as if because we are afraid to die, we are unable to truly live.

Both the persistently bored person and the systemically bored society deny the very boredom that guides, governs, and diminishes their existence. To expose that boredom might allude to our earthly end is too frightening, to name it is too risky, to admit it is too painful, to wrestle with it is too costly. But none of these maneuvers are as costly as doing nothing, of never giving a glance to the bleached skull or the rose bud or the photo of our grandkids taped to our computer or whatever symbol we choose as our living reminder. Nothing is more regrettable later than refusing to face into our death now. Lest we feel less than heroic, it is encouraging to note that turning full face begins with a glimpse and glance as courage, more times than not, is a dance comprised of many modest steps. Like the dance, it takes practice.

And “to face into” is the revealing phrase. Like overlaid masks worn at a masquerade party, whether the mask of self-loathing or apathy, the mask of frenetic busyness, the drive to succeed, or the fear of failure, the mask of greed or the quest for control or notoriety, the mask of cosmetic youthfulness or self-indulgence, the mask of overeating or the compulsion to watch online porn, the mask of continually working late or wiling away our days with frivolous hobbies, each in its own way hides the boredom that covers the face of despair that lurks beneath the disguise like the face of death itself.

Despair literally means to reverse hope, to move in the opposite direction of hopefulness. Since to face hope is to look in the direction of life, our challenge is to unmask the despair boredom conceals so that we can see and move into the light. When we dare to face the boredom of our lives, when in silence we listen to, wrestle with, accept, learn from, and pray the boredom rather than turn and run from it, then it becomes not a cul de sac of despair or a false detour around death but an opening to hope, a way toward our deepest yearning for meaning, and a gateway to authentic and abundant life. By listening to the boredom of our lives from behind whatever mask disguises it, we set in motion self-exploration that promotes self-understanding, acceptance, and love, significant being that prevents superficial living, and the courage to face into death which opens the way to gratefulness, the sacrament of the present moment, and hopefulness.

An essential dimension of a healthy spirituality, listening loudly helps us to hear the boredom for what it is: a disguise for despair, a summons from our soul, an appeal for authenticity, an invitation to magnanimity, and a call to the fullness of life. Despair itself is an unlikely but telling sign of our need to find a real and worthy reason to live. Despair is not a sign that life is meaningless. It is an invitation to live more meaningfully—and meaning is not something we find so much as it is something we give– the kind word, the hand held, the simple deed, the reverent gaze, the sympathetic nod, the friendly smile, the supportive note, the compassionate gesture, the lap of grace.

If we can dare to believe it, listening attentively to the boredom enables us to hear what lies behind it and prevents it from boring us to death and instead makes it capable of boring us to new life. This is the unexpected gift that boredom offers us and that a listening heart enables us to receive. In the end, boredom is not a sign of death, but a sacrament of life in disguise, one that alludes to our desire to become who God created us to be, one that inspires us to give meaning to our lives and the lives of others, one that encourages us to face our finitude by practicing the sacrament of the present moment, and one that awakens us to our natural thirst for the living God and a call to abundant living.

PRACTICE:

Before falling asleep tonight, offer a litany of thanks for the day’s “little” blessings and “miniature” moments of grace.