August 5, 2001

A network news program recently featured a story about a growing element of young people in Germany who have espoused the principles of the Third Reich and who have taken on the rituals and ideology of Nazism. In analyzing the cause of this alarming trend, news reporters cited boredom. A good number of those youth had little to do with their time. Ironically it is the same cause and explanation given for the rise of drugs among the young people of our country. Boredom is a problem in need of positive attention.

Dr. Joyce Brothers was once asked what she would tell someone whose life was empty and reeked of boredom. She said that she would tell them the most important thing in life is living for something more important that yourself. "DO THAT," she said, "AND YOU WILL NEVER BE BORED!"

Think of it! Luther Burbank fell in love with his plants and his life was filled with surprises until the end. Beethoven fell in love with music and even though he was afflicted with deafness, that love kept his life exciting, interesting, and full. John Keats fell in love with poetry and although he had to endure poverty, he led a life that hardly knew boredom.

A story about the great painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir aptly illustrates the point. He suffered from such crippling arthritis that in his later years he had to wrap bandages around his hands in order to be able to hold a brush. When someone asked him why he continued to paint, it was so painful, he responded, "The pain passes but the beauty and the pleasure remain!"

What Renoir was in love with ws the same thing that Burbank, Beethoven, and Keats were in love with – something bigger than themselves. When someone falls in love with something of that magnitude, there will be a ZEST for life that will never die. The MEDIOCRITY will never pass their lips.

In ancient times, a man wrote a book that described boredom of life. The man's name was Qoheleth. We have a sample of his work in our First Reading today. In our Second Reading, you could say that St. Paul is offering advice to Qoheleth with an antidote to the boredom he bemoans. He says "Seek what is not of this earth." Burbank, Beethoven, Keats, and Renoir heeded Paul's advice and proved the effectiveness of that antidote.

SO THE QUESTION: WHAT WOULD YOU NAME AS SOME OF THE PRIMARY CAUSES OF MEDIOCRITY IN YOUR LIFE TODAY AND WHY?

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