Boredom and the Things of Heaven

Many, perhaps most, of the discoveries made by the human race have taken place when we have been busy about doing other things. From the possible beginnings of cooking, to the invention of antibiotics, we always seem to find our best ideas when we aren’t consciously thinking about them. Adjutant to the power of coincidence in driving the process of discovery is the human quality of wonder, which has been recognized since at least Socrates as being the beginning of philosophy. It is not a stretch to see that wonder also is one of the primary drivers of empirical science, especially if we put aside modern pecuniary and business concerns.

In a strange way, the confluence of wonder and absent-minded thinking may be also one of the greatest preconditions for the reception of religious revelation, or even religious thought in general. For instance, most of the Old Testament Patriarchs, from Adam to Joseph, all received significant insights in the process of either a trance-like state or in a dream. While atheistic thinkers like Nietzsche dismissed the dream as being a legitimate means of encountering the numinous, other more sympathetic figures like William James and Carl Jung considered them to be significant in the formation of the individual religious consciousness. In any case, what all people could agree on is that, regardless of culture or creed, the experience of the numinous appears to be where the human sense of wonder and the open, unobstructed consciousness (or unconsciousness) intersect. Some religious and philosophical traditions dry to induce this condition by pharmacological or ritual means. Other traditions, while not seeking this state explicitly, nevertheless admit of a potentiality in humankind in being capax Dei (literally, ‘capable of God’, to borrow a Scholastic phrase) psychologically speaking.

If a space alien were to read the Bible, or even most religious texts, it would be easy to presume that experiences of the divine or numinous are nearly universal. Moreover, such a being may even conclude that such experiences are ‘connatural’ to the condition of being human. Very many people, when polled, report having had some sort of contact with a divine being, usually through an encounter which subjectively defies explanation. Sometimes these can be in the context of death and dying, as is the case with Near Death Experiences (NDEs) and other brushes with mortality. Other times these can be experiences at prayer or in life. What does emerge as a common theme, however, is that all these individuals experience, to borrow a term from Christian Theology, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, which literally translated with the Latin gerundive means “the mystery at which one must tremble, and which fascinates.” That is, there is simultaneously an experience of wonder, as much as there may also be a sense of dread or trembling, usually of the perception of one’s one insignificance in the face of the mystery encountered.

The account by St. Luke of the Ascension of Christ has an almost humorous element to it, as the disciples are lightly chided by the angels in Acts 1:11 as “staring” at the sky as the Ascended Christ recedes from their sight. Interestingly, it is said that a “cloud” (Acts 1:9) hid them from their vision. I think it would be a mistake to interpret this occultation as a merely meteorological event. Instead, granted how many times the presence of the divinity is depicted as a luminous cloud in both the Gospels and in wider Biblical usage, I think this passage would be better understood as Christ taking up his place as our head, interceding before the Father on our behalf. Our Lord had previously stated in the Gospel of John that his own departure from our physical sight ultimately is a boon for us, since if he would not do it, the Holy Spirit would not come (John 16:7). There is something, then, about the occultation of Christ that he saw as necessary so that we would be open, mentally and spiritually, to further growth. With Christ in heaven with his Father and ours, we as his body have our “head in the clouds”, while having our feet on the earth. This means that the Church is in the truest sense the ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ reaching from earth to heaven which will gather many nations, languages and tongues into Christ until he returns. The Ascension of Christ and his resultant return to the Father are some of the principal reasons for which St. Paul could urge us, “set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). In a sense, we will always, like the first disciples, have our minds and hearts aspicientes in caelum (Acts 1:11).

Other major revelations in the Book of Acts likewise took place in the context of dreams, visions, or other extraordinary experiences. We should note the ‘trajectory’ of these experiences, coming as they did from above. We should also note the state of the recipients. Most famously perhaps are St. Paul’s vision on the Road to Damascus, or St. Peter’s vision of the animals on the sheet descending from heaven. In all these cases, the great Apostles received a light from Christ when they are busy doing something else, whether travelling or resting from their labors.

Is it a coincidence that as our current age gets more and more “busy” and mentally crowded a multitude of preoccupations, our mental and spiritual capacity to perceive the divine and the spiritual recedes?

I once listened to a Priest on a Podcast who talked about his journey away from Social Media and the Smartphone. What most interested me in the midst of his argumentation was his assertion that what troubled him the most about the proliferation of technology was that he had “lost the ability to daydream”. That comment gave me pause. I have experienced the same thing in my own work with youth groups: when invited to do skits or other creative activities, I found that the majority seemed incapable of doing so without the aid of YouTube or some other thing. Now, I imagine that the internet can definitely help a person with ideas and provide a great source of inspiration. However, I think the dark side of over-stimulation is that the consciousness is less open to the actual and the ambient. Especially when we speak of the Deus absconditus, or the “hidden God”, what we are really talking about is a God who is hidden in plain sight, in the goodness of creation and the workings of providence far before one perhaps receives the data of revelation.

Boredom at times is a part of life, both for children and adults. However, many of us can tell stories about how we ‘made our own fun’ growing up, when the boredom was used as a catalyst for socialization and creativity. This type of boredom is different from the vicious type of boredom called ennui or acedia, which is a sort of existential disgust. But just as the destructive forces of ennui/acedia are defeated by an intensification of love and of labor, so too boredom can help us by indicating that there is still space in our minds and imaginations for what is true, good and beautiful. Boredom is to the mind what hunger is to the body; and our minds crave nourishment no less than our physical selves. An unwillingness or inability to perceive and experience true boredom is as dangerous as not knowing what true physical hunger is. Many people overeat or eat poor quality food out of bad habit. So too, I think many people avoid the signals that boredom send, perhaps out of fear of change, or not wanting to really encounter the meaning of that mental state.

The Ascension is the mystery par excellence for the daydreamer, the inventor, the mystic and the prophet. Our eyes fixed on the heavens is one of the ways we can avoid the trap of business and meaninglessness that afflicts postmodern society, and spur us on to greater human and supernatural achievements for the salvation of souls and the betterment of the human condition. Recapturing a sense of wonder and curiosity in the natural and supernatural worlds is a powerful antidote to boredom, and will help us step off the treadmills of consumerism, materialism, and philosophical agnosticism. All people of good will can truly have their eyes fixed on the heavens, and so receive meaning in their earthly lives.