1 kings on Boredom

In 1963, the politician, ambassador, and one-time presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson addressed the students of Princeton University with a touch of humor. “I understand I am here to speak, and ...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? Back to the Wilderness As he has been doing, Jesus calls the people’s minds back to the wilderness during The Exodus and reminds them of the manna ...

Ancient Lens What's the historical context? Back to the Wilderness As he has been doing, Jesus calls the people’s minds back to the wilderness during The Exodus and reminds them of the manna ...

One of the dangers of living in a constant state of distraction is that we never go to the bottom of our pain, our sadness, our emptiness, which means we never find that rock-bottom place of the peace...

Solitude is an opportunity to interrupt this cycle by turning off the noise and stimulation of our lives so that we can hear our loneliness and our longing calling us deeper into the only relationship...

Life is always dull and insipid to those who have no great works on their hands to do and no lofty ideals to elevate their spirits.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.

We would do well to keep in mind that Solomon’s words on the necessity of friendship were written toward the end of his life, well after he scaled his own Mount Significance. His accomplishments were ...

Everydayness is my problem. It’s easy to think about what you would do in wartime, or if a hurricane blows through, or if you spent a month in Paris, or if your guy wins the election, or if you won th...

A remarkable aspect of your mental life is that you are rarely stumped.

The drug problems in the U.S. demonstrate this pattern: by heightening powers of perception, chemical stimulants open up a new world to a generation that has never learned to appreciate fully the worl...

Have you ever seen As Good As It Gets, the late-nineties film starring Jack Nicholson? In it, Nicholson plays a cranky, misanthropic writer in New York City, snapping at anyone who crosses his p...

In 1889, the French novelist Paul Bourget penned The Disciple , where he depicted the life of a renowned philosopher and psychologist, whose existence was marked by a seemingly monotonous routine...

Holy Spirit Let us not lose ourselves in tedium Errands Obligations Holy Spirit Still us once in a while Stop us sometimes Let us breathe now and then Holy Spi...

A therapist once told me that the most common complaint he heard from his patients was the feeling that they didn’t belong. The feeling of being an imposter, or of being outside things, of not fitting...

In Lancelot , one of Walker Percy’s final novels, the narrator reflects on his own struggle with idleness and addiction to entertainment. In a poignant scene set outside his Mississippi mansion, ...

When every option is available to us, we don’t actually have freedom; we tend to shut down. I experienced what sociologists call choice overload (or paralysis) and decision fatigue. If you’ve ever tri...

My friend Wendy calls the incremental disappointments we endure over the years “the slow leak of life.”

Get to know someone really well, and almost without fail, you will discover a person who routinely struggles to get out of bed in the morning. And not just because they’re tired. They can’t get out of...

Dangerous levels of exhaustion usually accumulate over a longer period of time in which we are consistently living beyond human limits, functioning outside our giftedness, or not paying attention to t...

Perhaps we look to a screen because it’s too painful to remember we are mortal. To sit in our limits and let them wash over us. To embrace this body, this moment in time, this feeling, or this place. ...

Contentment makes much of little; greed makes little of much. Contentment is the poor man’s riches and desire the rich man’s poverty.

I once asked a psychologist who had been in practice for over forty years what is the most common regret his clients felt. Without hesitation, he said, “Selfishness.” Why was I not the spouse or paren...

Larry King, who has made his living speaking to people as a television talk show host, believes that asking questions is the secret of good conversation. He says, "I'm curious about everythin...

The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church,  If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p...

As we become more intentional about living according to our deepest desires, it becomes increasingly important to notice the effects of technology on our mind, our soul and our relationships.  The ...

Another reason we are so tired is that we are always working hard to figure things out rather than learning how to cease striving, how to be with what is true in God’s presence and let God be God in t...

But it’s not so simple, that sort of “quiet hour”. It has to be learned. A lot of unimportant inner litter and bits and pieces have to be swept out first. Even a small head can be piled high inside wi...

The antidote to exhaustion is not rest but wholeheartedness.