April 14, 2020 – Click here to listen
I’ve been bouncing off the walls with the coronavirus lockdown while my wife contentedly plays computer games and reads books. I don’t like computer games and I’m sick of reading. I’ve resorted to talking to my dog out of loneliness to talk to someone other than on the phone. I’ve gone bonkers and Sunday I tried to get my wife to have an Easter egg hunt between the two of us and she just looked at me like I’m weird and ignored me.
I’m not the only one. A reader wrote to me yesterday and asked if I thought that cigars would be allowed in heaven. I told him “Nope” and left it at that. Another wanted to know if her dog was going to heaven. Since pets don’t have a soul, I don’t much think so. But if they did, I wonder if some of those little demons that bark constantly might end up in hell. Judging from some of the e-mails I’m getting I think there are plenty of others with too much time on their hands and they seem to be as bored as I am.
I have been practicing playing my guitar daily and have improved my playing skills, but that becomes boring too and besides my fingers are raw. I want to work out, but I no longer have a home gym and no practical way to do it, so I substitute for it by laying on the couch eating Tostitos and salsa. I go for a daily walk and my neighbors stay 40 feet away and we shout at each other to say hello.
I’ve watched more television in the last month than I’ve watched in my entire life. I literally feel my intellect beginning to decline from it. I had several speaking engagements lined up, but all have been cancelled. Our small group from church has begun meeting by Zoom video conferencing and my friend’s heads are the size of a postage stamp on my computer screen.
All in all it is a boring time for someone who is used to being on the go constantly. I have studied the Bible and increased prayer time. I have a new book I’m trying to finish but cannot find the willpower to work on it. It is not for a lack of time; I assume it is laziness. I’ve gotten to the point whereby I look forward to garbage days so I can have something useful to do in taking the garbage to the road.
So I was thinking about all of this today and wondering about the many people I hear about that work their entire lives and then retire and a few months later die. Can we die of boredom?
Today I’m determined to change my patterns. I have asked God to give me the self-discipline to get on a routine during this time. I’ve always worked by making a daily written schedule of things to do. Whenever I made a work schedule I always started with the most difficult items on the list and as I worked through it the tasks got easier and easier. Maybe that will motivate me.
God didn’t design us to be lazy and useless. I’ve been determined to get back into art and I think I might order some paints and a canvas today. I will devote some time to working on writing my book and other things that I’ve been putting off. It seems like this period of time would be a good time to improve our lives instead of focusing on the media and all the grim statistics.
I’ve been writing Words for the Day five days per week for 22 years and often thought of it as being about nothing just like Seinfeld. I always tried to write about what was going on in my life, and those whom I know, and current events as I see them. I always have tried to use the Bible to make spiritual sense out of it all and give it some meaning. Today’s entry exemplifies writing about nothing. Making spiritual sense out of these crazy times in which we find ourselves seems difficult. Solomon in Ecclesiastes 1:6 wrote: Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense. I have seen it all — Nothing makes sense! He was the wisest man in the world, fabulously wealthy, famous, powerful, and owned every material thing someone could want and yet he was bored silly. I read a Bible verse this morning that made sense to me.
1 Peter 5:7
“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”