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Messages from the Pastor

The Worst of the Seven?

6/2/2022

 
Pastor Paul
As a recent retiree I find myself in conversation with others who are “retired.”  Most find this new phase of life challenging, provocative, exciting, relaxing.  Occasionally, however, I have heard post-career living described as “awfully boring” or “deadly.”
 
I am perplexed by the concept of life as “boring/deadly” and one of my favorite author/theologians Frederick Buechner has this to say:
As ACEDIA [apathy, disinterest, inertia] BOREDOM is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  It deserves the honor.
You can be bored by virtually anything if you put your mind to it, or choose not to.  You can yawn your way thorough Don Giovanni or a trip to the Grand Canyon or an afternoon with your dearest friend or a sunset.  There are doubtless those who nodded off at the coronation of Napoleon or the trial of Joan of Arc or when Shakespeare appeared at the Globe in Hamlet or Lincoln delivered himself of a few remarks at Gettysburg.  The odds are that the Sermon on the Mount had more than a few of the congregation twitchy and glassy-eyed.
To be bored is to turn down cold whatever life happens to be offering you at the moment.  It is to cast a jaundiced eye at life in general including most of all your own life.  You feel nothing is worth getting excited about because you are yourself not worth getting excited about.
          To be bored is a way of making the least of things you often have a sneaking suspicion you need the most.
          To be bored to death is a form of suicide.+
 
Oh Lord, I know that death comes to all of us, but it seems particularly sad when it is due to our own unwillingness to see life with eyes of wonder, amusement and involvement.  Aid me in the gracious pursuit of everything gifted me, every moment I live – that I might be fully alive.
 
+ from Listening to Your Life, © 1992 Harper San Francisco, page 142


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