PARADOXICAL

The faith chronicles

Thursday, March 14, 2013

 

Lenten retreat reflection: Day 31 - Boredom as a sign


In high contrast to yesterday's reflection, I was totally disturbed by this line:

"People who are profoundly intimate with their indwelling Lord are never bored."

I felt guilty because I'm a person who gets easily bored. I started my 'writing career' by having published a long essay about being bored at 27.

I've figured out at age 42 that my great tendency to boredom is fueled by restlessness. Why am I so restless? Is it because I feel a need to prove something, to achieve something great, in order to be loved, to be of worth, to be acceptable to my parents/family/society? Why do I feel incomplete/a failure without these? It's very telling.

There must be something I long to hear from the Lord that I haven't been hearing for the longest time.

"The main source of deep conversion is to fall in love with endless Beauty."

I want to be in that zone again with the Lord where everything is idyllic, as though I am prepared to die any moment and it wouldn't matter at all, for I am in an ecstatic, head-over-heels-in-love state with God. When this "fervor of my first love" was lost or waned, or I just couldn't maintain it, I developed this view that holiness is like an 'expensive'-looking woman: too high-maintenance to sustain for long.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe this is the lesson God wants me to learn: I need to really work on my spiritual life. "Resolute" is indeed the word. If I need to prove something, I need to prove the firmness of my will not just to get to heaven but to prove my love of/to/for God.

That's the trouble with me, it turns out: I've been trying to prove all the wrong things, neglecting the only thing I needed to prove. Sigh.


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