We are always filling our world with noise. Noise that comes from telephones,
the TV, the IPod, the crowds in the street, the cars, the hum of the florescent
light, our own words spoken not so much to communicate, as to fill the silence.
We can’t always control this noise, but often we can. I get up in the morning
and make my way to the kitchen for my coffee and along the way I turn on the
radio to get some music. Yes, it is classic music, but I think I turn it on to
fill the silence. Other times I sit in a room and listen while people clear
their throats or cough or fidget, anything to make a sound to fill the silence.
Some people are afraid of silence, just as they are of empty spaces or being
alone. Anthony Bloom, a writer on the spiritual life, has written these probing
words: “Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do.
Say “I am now with myself,” and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short
time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us one very useful thing. It
gives us insight into the fact that if after ten minutes of being alone with
ourselves we feel like that, it is no wonder that others should feel equally
bored! Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own
selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life
carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within
outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we
live by reflection, by reaction….We are completely empty, we do not act from
within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from
outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How
seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that
there is within ourselves. (Beginning to Pray, 1970: 68)
Is that true? Is it true that there is an emptiness within me that is like a
great vortex sucking things from around me into it so that somehow I won’t feel
so bored? Maybe. I am often surprised, but probably shouldn’t be, when I see on
Facebook or hear in a conversation someone, usually a student, saying that they
are bored. Usually this happens because there is no school or assignments they
have to do. But it is also true of adults. We are bored when there are no
external stimuli, when there is no activity or noise or other people. Have we
become some incapable of experiencing the depth and richness within ourselves
that we have to live by reflection or reaction? As Michael Casey puts it: “There
is no one at home in us except the flickering images we receive from outside” (A
Guide to Living in the Truth, Ligouri/Triumph, 2001:261)
The noise often keeps us from facing that truth about ourselves. But it can
also keep us from hearing and meeting the needs of the people around us. We need
them to eliminate the boredom, to excite us, to keep us from being bored. And in
so doing, we use them. We don’t really relate to them or hear them or care for
them. That’s what can happen when we don’t have a center or live out of the
depth and richness that is within us.
But maybe the real problem is that the noise with which we surround ourselves
is really there to keep us from listening to God. And because we don’t listen,
we aren’t connected to the One that can give our lives that center, that
richness, that depth that enables us to overcome our boredom, live fully in the
world, and relate meaningfully to the people and world around us. Without that
all important listening to God, that connection, we are bored, whether we
recognize it or not.
Henry Nouwen reminds us that “Boredom is a sentiment of
disconnectedness….Life presents itself as a random and unconnected series of
activities and events over which we have little or no control. To be bored,
therefore, does not mean that we have nothing to do, but that we question the
value of the things we are so busy doing….The great paradox of our time is that
so many of us are busy and bored at the same time. While running from one event
to the next, we wonder in our innermost selves if anything is really happening.
While racing to keep up with our tasks and obligations, we are not so sure
that…it would make any difference if we did nothing at all. In short, while our
lives are full, we feel unfulfilled.” (Making All Things New, 1981: 29-30)
The season of Lent (which begins on March 9) is a time for getting connected.
It is a time for pausing to reflect, evaluate, refresh, and learn to live again.
It is a time to experience the richness and depth of a relationship with God
that makes us aware of the richness and depth of life. When that happens, we
don’t fear being alone, we don’t fear silence, we don’t need to fill our lives
with activities or things or use people to be fulfilled. We find that
satisfaction welling up from inside of us. We then are able to experience life
in all its fullness and relate meaningfully to the things and people around us.
Boredom is beaten back. Peace.
