We all get bored at one time or another. It's nothing to be ashamed of, nor does it mean we're lazy or dull. Learn to tolerate boredom. Manage the emotions that arise when we're bored. Be interested in your experience, observe the emotions, then let them go. As one experience arises and fades away, another will take its place, life will go on, and you might find you don't need to bungee jump or smoke pot or fly to the moon to escape boredom. Just being alive will be enough.
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With Prayer, What Matters Is that We Start
Every once in a while, I meet with a patient who wants to know how to pray. The short answer is that there is no right way. You can find instructions, of course, but you can also find instructions that defy those instructions, so in the end, you just have to do what feels best to you. That isn't where I start with people, though. First, I have to figure out why they're asking the question.
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Nothing Is Personal and the Book of Job
Staring with Job Job took nothing personally. You know Job. He was the “blameless and upright” man from the Hebrew Bible “who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1). Blessed with a fine home, ten children, many servants, and thousands of sheep, camels, oxen, and donkeys, he was one of God’s favorites. Then one day, God bragged to Satan about how much Job feared and honored Him. “There is no one like him on the earth,” said the deity, “a blameless and upright man” (Job 1:8). Satan wondered if this was really true. “Does Job fear God for nothing?” he asked. “You have blessed the work of his…
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Choice, Transformation, and Love
The Nature of Reality Each January, as the year turns, we move into something new. We cross a threshold. We transition from memory to hope. The future spreads out before us, and possibilities abound. Many of us eagerly plan our resolutions, hoping they will transform turn us into the person we always wanted to be. Unfortunately, our plans rarely play out the way we expect them to. According to my elder son, this is because we have less control over our life than we like to think. For him, existence is an intricate interplay of events, occasions, thoughts, and experiences that weave and develop in ways beyond our comprehension. As…
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Reconciliation: A Spiritual Resolution
General Resolutions As New Year’s Eve approaches, resolutions are on many people’s minds. According to a 2015 Nielsen study, the most popular New Year’s resolutions are staying fit and losing weight. Close seconds are “enjoying life to the fullest” and saving money. Then comes spending more time with friends and family and getting organized. These changes are great ways to make ourselves feel better by enlivening us physically and mentally, helping us feel secure in the world; and increasing our productivity. Spending time with loved ones is always good, assuming those relationships are healthy and supportive or are at least open to improvement. Of course, we don’t need to wait…
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Religion, Christmas, and Reason
Honoring the Return of the Sun The winter solstice has come and gone. Even as we venture into the chill of winter, we can take comfort in knowing that today’s light will last a little longer than yesterday’s. Cultures around the world celebrate this return of the sun. In Iran, for instance, there is Yalda, a night when the people stay awake until morning to protect themselves against evil forces that are particularly strong at this time. They eat pomegranates and watermelon, and they read the poems of Hafiz. At dawn, they welcome the return of Ahura Mazda, the lord of wisdom. In the best of worlds, Yalda is a…
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Addiction, Surrender, and the Holy
Surrendering to the Wrong Thing Twelve-step groups talk about surrender. Few of us, perhaps none of us, get through life without surrendering to something, but not all surrenderings are created equal. Some lead to freedom and restoration; others lead to suffering and eventual annihilation. During my late adolescence, I saw some of the ugliness that comes when we surrender to the wrong things. On my way to the Midwest, I ended up riding around with a young man who sold large quantities of drugs to local dealers. Some of them lived in homes where the lawns were trimmed and the siding newly painted, but most squatted in boarded-up apartment buildings,…
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Accepting Death
The Monarch and the Milkweed Adult monarch butterflies spend the spring and summer in the United States and Canada. There they sip nectar from wildflowers and search for milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. The glycoside toxins in the plants’ leaves, to which the monarchs are immune, collect in the body of their larvae, remaining in their fat and muscle for their entire life cycle. Research is mixed on how much protection the poison actually provides the insects. Does the bright orange of their cloak, veined by black and speckled with white dots, warn potential predators of their nasty taste, or is that a coincidence? Is the butterfly’s…
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Luke, Transformation, and Preparation
Preparing for New Life Her initial preparation took years. At first, she didn’t realize she was preparing for anything. All she noticed was a niggling dissatisfaction. Over time, however, that discomfort grew, forcing her into a deep introspection, invisible to those who pressed against her in the packed train during each evening’s commute, or sat beside her at meetings as they discussed the sins of poverty, or ate lunch with her, danced with her, smoked pot with her. While those around her continued their mindless distractions, she searched within her heart and spirit with a merciless resolve. In the end, she concluded there were better ways to build a life…
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Privilege and Entitlement in Kat Howard’s “Unseen World”
The Privilege of Magic Only some people can perform magic. Like any privilege to which we are born, whether it be masculinity, whiteness, wealth, heterosexuality, or attractiveness, the ability to weave a spell and make it stick is not good or bad in and of itself, except that society does make it so. Therefore, most of us end up confusing an accident of birth with entitlement. Kat Howard explores this tension between privilege and entitlement in her novel, An Unkindness of Magicians. The magic community, called the Unseen World, is divided into houses. Every twenty years or so the houses hold the Turning to determine which of them will rule…