Between Easter, school activities and work projects, spring always feels like a marathon. By this time of year, everyone in my house is very tired of being so busy, and we begin to count down the days to the end of school (12 as of this writing). Slower summer days are just around the corner!
However, if history repeats, after about a week of relaxation, a new problem will emerge. Predictably, the “b word” appears — “bored.” Without the structure of homework, meetings, rehearsals and sports practices to fill the hours, what’s there to do?
Psychologists say that boredom is essential for early childhood development. Long stretches of undirected playtime stimulate creativity, discovery and flexibility. Further, being bored together with other children develops conversational, emotional and interpersonal skills. For older children, free time is equally beneficial, correlating with lower anxiety and higher rates of happiness relative to overscheduled peers, according to the National Institute of Health.
I can’t help but recall all the shenanigans I orchestrated with my siblings on long summer days. We would create bizarre new dishes from random ingredients and make each other try them. We would stage variety shows for our parents. We would build forts with card tables and every blanket in the house. We might have been bored, but we were never boring.
Sometimes boredom can creep into our spiritual life as well: We get “bored” at church or “bored” of prayer.
In his book “Bored Again Catholic,” author Tim O’Malley posits the idea of “good boredom,” which, in the context of the Mass, opens us to a quiet interior space where we can encounter God. In the same way that the good boredom of unstructured summer days leads to creative adventures, the often uneventful routine of Mass or private prayer brings opportunities to think and breathe deeply, to listen and observe, to rest and refresh.
This is ever more necessary in our culture full of distractions, where the quiet inner voice is frequently drowned out by so much other noise.
Finding comfortability with this interior stillness is the first step to spiritual creativity and human flourishing. Like boredom at home, boredom at church is not a problem to be fixed. The blank canvas of the mind is a feature, not a flaw, of a healthy spiritual life. This is where God can speak and we can listen.
Nothing needs to be injected into prayer to make it more exciting. We must simply be willing to engage in some “good boredom” in a place relatively free of distraction. Such spaces are increasingly rare, as rare as a summer blanket fort.
If you are blessed with a slower pace of life in the coming days, practice some good boredom. When children run out of structured activities, don’t rush in to provide more. That empty space is where the real fun begins and genuine human and spiritual development can take flight. That’s true for all of us, no matter our age.
Between Amens — The benefits of boredom for children and adults, alike
Between Easter, school activities and work projects, spring always feels like a marathon. By this time of year, everyone in my house is very tired of being so busy, and we begin to count down the days to the end of school (12 as of this writing). Slower summer days are just around the corner!
However, if history repeats, after about a week of relaxation, a new problem will emerge. Predictably, the “b word” appears — “bored.” Without the structure of homework, meetings, rehearsals and sports practices to fill the hours, what’s there to do?
Psychologists say that boredom is essential for early childhood development. Long stretches of undirected playtime stimulate creativity, discovery and flexibility. Further, being bored together with other children develops conversational, emotional and interpersonal skills. For older children, free time is equally beneficial, correlating with lower anxiety and higher rates of happiness relative to overscheduled peers, according to the National Institute of Health.
I can’t help but recall all the shenanigans I orchestrated with my siblings on long summer days. We would create bizarre new dishes from random ingredients and make each other try them. We would stage variety shows for our parents. We would build forts with card tables and every blanket in the house. We might have been bored, but we were never boring.
Sometimes boredom can creep into our spiritual life as well: We get “bored” at church or “bored” of prayer.
In his book “Bored Again Catholic,” author Tim O’Malley posits the idea of “good boredom,” which, in the context of the Mass, opens us to a quiet interior space where we can encounter God. In the same way that the good boredom of unstructured summer days leads to creative adventures, the often uneventful routine of Mass or private prayer brings opportunities to think and breathe deeply, to listen and observe, to rest and refresh.
This is ever more necessary in our culture full of distractions, where the quiet inner voice is frequently drowned out by so much other noise.
Finding comfortability with this interior stillness is the first step to spiritual creativity and human flourishing. Like boredom at home, boredom at church is not a problem to be fixed. The blank canvas of the mind is a feature, not a flaw, of a healthy spiritual life. This is where God can speak and we can listen.
Nothing needs to be injected into prayer to make it more exciting. We must simply be willing to engage in some “good boredom” in a place relatively free of distraction. Such spaces are increasingly rare, as rare as a summer blanket fort.
If you are blessed with a slower pace of life in the coming days, practice some good boredom. When children run out of structured activities, don’t rush in to provide more. That empty space is where the real fun begins and genuine human and spiritual development can take flight. That’s true for all of us, no matter our age.
‘Quiet retreat’ for women planned March 2 to 4 in Ferdinand