Boredom and Prayer

I have always been intrigued by the meaning of boredom.  Kathleen Norris a few years ago, in a book on acedia, seemed to connect it with mild depression.

For me, I think of the fear of running out of things to do, as experienced by many kids facing a long summer; or the fear that the present event (a dull talk) will never end. It has to do with time and so we cannot say that our pets are bored (in the way we are) since they lack an awareness of time.

Noah Millman in a recent post (Oct. 8) in the American Conservative gives his own take on the subject: boredom is "a painfully acute awareness of time passing without being filled."  He connects this with his personal reflection on the prayer experience he has had in synogogues, where the long, repetitive chant seems almost unbearable.

But it isn't really boring, he says, if it is done well; attempts to enliven the traditional prayers make the service truly boring. What he finds in the liturgically structured prayers of the synagogue is a "quasi-meditative mental state that really isn't on the boredom-excitement spectrum."  There is comfortable familiarity in the repetition, leading to a trance-like state.

Many say such ritual praying is merely mouthing words and going through the motions of prayer, with the mind elsewhere. And that, says Millman, is just what he wants--not to think about what he is saying; if he did, he would be bored out of his mind.

Whatever intellectual or emotional experience he has happens "on a level of consciousness somewhat removed from the activity of prayer."  Now and then words hit you with their meaning, but by and large, the mindless repetition allows you to float above yourself. It takes you out of the usual pattern of time. So the prayer itself is a means to an end.

This familiar pattern--so familiar it requires no mind--reminds me of what I know of Buddhist chant and, to a lesser extent, of the Catholic rosary: it takes a certain amount of boring practice to get to the point of transcendent meditation where we are no longer aware of ourselves and focus our attention on a scene from the Bible.

When I think of the monastic tradition of contemplative prayer, the use of repeated Psalms that leads sometimes to silence, I wonder: are the Catholic monks who pray this way five or more times each day, every day, paying attention to the words (as I assume they are) or have they become so accustomed to the daily practice that they are in a no-mind state that takes them beyond time and place to union with God? That would seem to be the goal, albeit seldom realized.

If so, there might be a connection between Jewish, Buddhist and Catholic chant and meditative practice; but this may be too simplistic. My liturgy friend Ned might comment on this: do we in the Chrisitian world use the repeated words of the Psalms to move beyond verbal prayer? When we pray the rosary, do we ignore the words of the repeated prayers? Or do we remain conscious, while meditating on the glorious or sorrowful mysteries, of the meaning of what we say? Are we in two places at once--here and "there"? Is that why it is so hard?

I agree with Millman that we must go through the often boring practice of repetitive prayer to move to a higher level so that the concept of boredom becomes irrelevant. And I am grateful that his brief post provoked so much reflection on prayer, the subject of an ongoing struggle on my part.

Beating My Breast

This post will probably interest mainly Catholics, at least those who attend Mass or have read about changes in the liturgy. I mean the recent effort to return to the Latin original after 40 years of using a serviceable English translation of the Missal.

First, I have to say that change itself in such cases, when it is enforced on the faithful, is problematic: People do not like change any more than our cat welcomes any alteration in her space. The updating of the Mass in the 1960s was so traumatic for many traditionalists that they fled elsewhere.

Now the changes are less drastic but seemingly unnecessary, a huge expense of time and money when attention should be paid to bigger issues. But that is what bureaucrats in Rome do: divert our attention from the crisis in the priesthood by burdening the priests with learning a new translation that may be more "accurate" in some respects but which lacks lyrical grace and beauty.

As Eugene C. Kennedy writes, it is all a clerical trick to divert our attention from more serious matters: Rome burns and fiddles with words. He, like me, does not want to be taken back to 1950. We do not want a reform of the reforming Second Vatican Council, which emphasiszed the community; the new translation emphasizes the individual, as when we return to saying: "I believe" and "through my most grievous fault."

This latter (mea maxima culpa) requires a beating of the breast, actually a gentle tap on the chest to remind me of my sin and guilt, to recall that ascetic practice of the past called "taking the discipline," in which the penitent whips himself with a small corded rope, not to inflict pain but to remind him or her of the unmerited suffering of Christ.

If I want such a reminder of unmerited suffering, I can turn on the news and see the suffering of Christ in the faces of people in Africa and the Mideast or wherever torture, war, abuse, and injustice reign. As to mortifying my flesh, I can--and do--prefer to work out at the Y, where the disciplining of my body and its frail flesh is a quite adequate reminder of my physical weakness and laziness. That workout has its spiritual side.

So I do not intend to beat my breast. I am too progressive to move backward. As to the translation, I will probably, like most people, try to ignore the changes as best I can and say the old words quietly while continuing to pay to support a church that thinks such unnecessary and diversionary changes are just what we need.

Of course, if the liturgists had hired a few poets to help them give us a memorable translation, it would be different matter. In private, in my own language,I will pray for the priests, especially the brave ones who are advocating what Rome fears: the ordination of married men and women. That would be progressive, but I will not live to see it happen, if it ever does.