I’m Bored!
David Plowden has produced some of the most powerful photographs we have of Mid-western working farmland. Time wrote that his prints tell more about our nation than all our environmental studies. He has been compared with Walker Evans, the brilliant chronicler of the Dust Bowl. His work is included in the permanent work of the Smithsonian Institute. Check it out in his book Commonplace. And does David Plowden get excited about his work?!
On a berm in the middle of Lester Fister’s Iowa Hybrid Cornfield, camera in hand, Plowden shouts to his helper, face alight with pleasure, “We’re smack dab in the middle of the corn belt David. Isn’t it great!? No matter which way you look, it’s America. Can you smell it?” Now his shutter is ka-chicking away. “You know what I really love about doing this? In a sense I preserve this little place. I caught it for others. It won’t disappear. I love that feeling!”
But Plowden has found through years of teaching photography that increasingly his students don’t share his zeal for capturing life on film. (Why one enrolls in a professional photography course when one doesn’t have passion for photography is the stuff of another article!) One of the more mystifying and frequent laments Plowden faced from students under his picture taking tutelage was, of all things, “This is boring!”
To begin to free all his students from the malaise of boredom in life Professor Plowden gave his students this assignment: “Go out and photograph something that’s boring. Go out and photograph the state of being bored - to see if it’s possible.” The famous photographer had to admit that some of them did it beautifully. “What did they photograph?” a reporter asked. “Almost all of them photographed something that was very still,” Plowden replied. “A great many of them photographed our classrooms – which I felt made a point. And one of them photographed me!”
Mid-summer American parents of school-aged children know they will soon hear similar complaints to those heard by Plowden. “I’m bored!” Months of COVID quarantine have perhaps already produced cries of, “There’s nothing to do.” Worse yet, if boredom is defined as “a loss in the joy of wonder of what you do” then the truth is many an adult is bored as well - bored to death. So what is boredom? Better yet, how does God’s wisdom help us replace boredom with a bloom in Christ?
1. Remember what boredom is the opposite of. Most Christian writers define boredom as disinterest. It’s valuable to keep this in mind when you hear your children or yourself complain of boredom. Boredom is often the heart finding some task or person or event or even most everything uninteresting, barring health issues or the problems of an impenitent heart. Philipps Brooks said, “The monotony of life is in you not in the world.”
When kids whine, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do,” do they literally mean there isn’t a single thing to do in the house, yard, or life? If they do we roll our eyes in disgust with our endless list of things that need to get done and feel anger at the foolishness of such a statement, right? But usually what is behind a statement like this is, “I can’t think of anything that interests me.” My brothers and I weren’t the brightest bulbs on the porch growing up but we learned one thing real quick. Don’t ever say to our dad, “I’m bored; there’s nothing to do.” That led in a hurry to you doing something like weeding the garden, or washing the car, or giving Frosty our poodle a bath. Better to be bored!!
But this is why one can be very busy and very bored. By the way, this is why a spouse might think he or she is bored with his or her partner. Boredom often is not the opposite of busyness but it is the opposite of interest. You chose to lose interest in things and feel bored. And almost without exception lack of interest is because of a lack of finding genuine joy or satisfaction in what you are doing.
Think of boredom then as the warning bell dinging, “Someone has lost interest in what truly brings joy.” Let boredom tell you the same thing being on the treadmill for the first time after the gyms open and you can’t catch your breath. In a creative and clear way someone’s capacity in what actually and truly is interesting in life needs to be increased. “Kids here is why making a bird house benefits you and God’s creatures.” “Honey, what do you need from me to help your interest in painting?”
If you feed boredom only the junk food of easy entertainment, titillating stimulation, and more gaming in the end you will only be more bored. Genuine lasting joy is not found in those interests, only a little happiness for a moment. True joy is found in knowing Jesus, loving him, and living for him not in what Jeremiah called broken cisterns. “My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Broken cistern or budding desire? Delight or dullness? Your choice. Kindle interest. Remember what boredom is the opposite of.
2. For heaven’s sake, forget yourself. Garrison Keillor describes a joy impaired elderly lady named Edith like this. “Edith lived in her own little world, surrounded North, South, East, and West by Edith.” Funny thing is Edith always had a louse in her liver about being bored too. This is inevitable when you begin to think life should always revolve around what you want, what you desire, what you need. This is why Walker Percy accurately describes boredom as “Self stuffed with self.”
Paul writes to the Philippians: “Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 - then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 - Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 - not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:1-4).
“For the sake of heaven,” Paul is saying, “if Christ’s humble love has made a difference in your life then put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Forget yourself long enough to love others in Christ.” One of the reasons why boredom has become so much more common is we are too preoccupied with looking after ourselves. The Son of man came not to be served but to serve. His serving love that took our sin away compels us to want to serve others in love. “Hey, kids, you know that elderly lady named Edith? The one who crabs all the time? Yes, she can complain but I asked her if you could paint her garage for her this summer and she actually smiled. You know if you do this for her you are not only loving her but your loving Jesus. Why don’t you give it a try? It might be…interesting!?” I’m spit balling here but you get the idea.
Attached to this article, believe it or not, is the image David Plowden is most famous for. It’s a print of the Statue of Liberty rising, ghostlike from a weedy, rubble-strewn New Jersey wasteland. A grand sprawl of trash and utility poles is leading us to liberty. This is some of what Plowden recently said in capturing this photo: “I have turned to the way I know best to serve others to express my distress over our appalling indifference and misplaced priorities in America. I am so alive when I serve in this way. It’s so interesting and it never gets old.”
I may be wrong but this is an unbelieving photographer who seemingly has banished boredom as a settled disposition from his life. How? He is using gifts given to him by God to serve others. Yes, he seemingly does not acknowledge the LORD as the giver of those gifts. Nevertheless in using them he has served others for over 45 years now and it has never gotten old. Imagine, my friend, the passion children of God might have for serving others with their gifts knowing full well the LORD, who loves us with an eternal love, is the source of them! Surely boredom will be replaced with a bloom in Christ. May it be true for you.