‘Diary of a Country Priest’ and the biggest problem we face today

Sometimes, on my day off I’m lucky enough to have a completely lazy afternoon. I lean into it and intentionally bore myself. I go outside to the patio, read a book for a bit, sip coffee, stare at the sky, and feel the sun on my skin. I’ll watch the children play and maybe head down to the playground with the youngest. It’s a pleasant way to waste an afternoon. The time lengthens and the simple fact that I am alive and it is good to be here seeps into my bones.

A few years ago, I wrote about why reasonable doses of boredom are good for us. Boredom prompts us to respond with creativity and imagination, much the way a child who only has a stick to play with as a toy will turn that stick into hours of entertainment. A lazy afternoon with no mobile phone, social media, errands, or television allows for solitude and stillness. During those times, I do my best thinking. Something new grows. Instead of spreading out into a million activities, I can go deep. In our modern era in which productivity and efficiency are valued above all else, it feels a waste of a perfectly good afternoon, which it is. But it really isn’t.

That said, there’s another kind of boredom that is exceedingly dangerous.“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” is an honored folk-saying for good reason. There are days when I’m simply not up to the challenge of being bored because I crave easy entertainment. So, instead of responding to boredom positively, I indulge in pointless errands, temptation, anxiety, and complaining. I mindlessly scroll social media or watch some terribly forgettable television show just to make the time pass more quickly.

Times like these bring home the intensity of my addiction to constant stimulation. The addiction becomes numbing, and I end up in the strange scenario of being both over-stimulated and bored at the same time. It feels touristy in the worst sense of the word, as if I’m an impatient traveler snapping quick pictures of majestic sights and quickly moving on, insensible to the wonder of what’s before my eyes. I’m seeking change for the sake of change, new things, new experiences one after the other, rapidly, each one superficial. I appreciate none of it.

I demand entertainment because if even for one second I have to be alone with my thoughts, my skin crawls. I’m a master of avoidance. I dodge suffering, self-reflection, engagement in the spiritual life, anything at all that requires sustained attention. It’s a voluntary anesthetizing for the sake of avoidance, but I end up numbing not only the stuff I want to avoid but also the good. There’s no escaping losing the good along with the bad. That’s the way life is. We take it whole and entire or not at all.

In other words, if we want to be truly alive, we’re going to have to be bored sometimes. If we try to avoid it, we’ll end up, ironically, bored all the time. And this second type of boredom isn’t healthy at all. It’s the sort of boredom that is weary of life itself. We might call it existential boredom. If we want to be fancy about it, we can use the word ennui. If we want to be theological, it’s acedia.

Boredom with life itself is dangerous. It de-motivates spiritual striving and damages our hope. Even more fundamentally, it’s a really unpleasant way to exist. Mentally, constant boredom is a grind and causes intense dissatisfaction. This is when people make drastic decisions and make reckless choices. They’d rather do anything at all to feel something new and different, even a negative experience, rather than remain trapped in numbing boringness.

Change for the sake of change, however, gets us nowhere. The fact is, no matter where I go or what changes I make, I’m still stuck with myself. Existential boredom arises from the interior of a person, not from exterior circumstances. It indicates a problem in me.

In his book Diary of a Country Priest, Georges Bernanos writes about a young priest who realizes that his new parish is “eaten up by boredom.” He tries to make personal connections with his parishioners, but they’re uninterested. Their spiritual exhaustion has consumed them from the inside. They are no longer capable of prayer, joy, or wonder. Musing on this phenomenon, Bernanos questions if the apathy of the modern world has begun the shameful process of “re-commencing the mystery of the Incarnation backwards.” In other words, boredom is removing the miracle of God’s entry into the world. All the mystery is disappearing. All the beauty is gone. All the meaning of existence is dissipated.

The young priest attempts to revive his parishioners, but there’s no fixing it. “My parish is bored stiff,” he says. The magic is gone. Boredom has chased it away. By rejecting one form of boredom – the boredom of the occasional lazy afternoon, or the quietude of a holy hour, or of sitting alone for a few minutes each day in prayer -- the parishioners have also abandoned spiritual pursuits, self-reflection, and creativity. They have brought on a far more deadly boredom. In seeking out constant activity, they’ve lost touch with their inner selves. Bernanos writes, “Many men never give out the whole of themselves, their deepest truth. They live on the surface...”

This is the boredom we must be vigilant against. This sadness about divine things, the lack of energy to dream and achieve big goals and fearlessly examine the meaning of existence.

On the other hand, during those afternoons when all of time stretches out before me, I intentionally allow myself to be un-entertained. I am reminded that the heart of existence is love, and because this love exists my life matters from beginning to end. I must use my days well. This doesn’t mean only my productivity and activity, but also the more quiet but equally important task of searching out the whole of my self – who I am meant to become and what the meaning is of my journey through this world.

When we are bored, it becomes manifestly apparent that this wild and wonderful life God has given us is expansively, endlessly exciting.