I am not alone (nor bored) because God is with me. The role of religion in old age
Devoting too much time to contemplation, to the shelter of the walls of the cells in which the monks of the Middle Ages spent their days, gave rise centuries ago to the experience known as acedia. Signifying boredom, idleness, dryness of the soul, inexplicable sadness, complete paralysis of the will and laziness, acedia distracted men of faith from their contemplative duties and plunged them into sleep, or into dangerous fantasy. In the midday hours, the lack of commitment to divinity then caused a deep agitation that prevented the soul from being calm. This form of spiritual alienation led men of faith to indulge in fallacious reasoning until they reached the conclusion that the constancy required for the attainment of grace was not worthwhile. The meridian demon that "chooses his victims from among the religious men and assaults them when the sun culminates over the horizon," St. Augustine said, became a temptation generated by the forced inactivity of monastic life that came to be included in the list of capital sins. If sins are the sicknesses of the soul, there was a time when boredom was part of the list of the most serious sinful attitudes.
The existing (to some extent) freedom of worship in developed countries has banished the stigma that boredom is a vice. However, the rejection of this emotion is still present in most religious congregations because it is a distraction from the word of God. Boredom is synonymous with idleness and "the idle mind is the playground of the devil," as the popular saying goes. In fact, religion is presented today as one of the banners in the fight against boredom: one that seems to be quite successful.
Last year my friend the researcher at King's College London Wijnand A. P. van Tilburg and colleagues published an article in the journal Emotion entitled "Bored Like Hell: Religiosity Reduces Boredom and Tempers the Quest for Meaning", which showed that religious people of all faiths experience less boredom because, since boredom is directly related to a perceived lack of meaning, they are less in need of meaning in their lives. The lack of this factor that common mortals suffer and which leads to boredom is supplied to believers through faith. Although the average age of the participants in the Van Tilburg studies was 37, their results can be extrapolated to the group that interests us: the elderly.
A clear example of this is that of Isabel, a 67 year-old woman from Malaga who wanted to share her experience with the readers of this blog. After working in her own women's clothing shop for three decades, Isabel retired 10 years ago to be with her husband when she had the misfortune of falling ill. Life as a self-employed person, along with the housework, hardly left her any time for other activities. Yet Isabel (like her husband, who accompanies her in the interview) took hours off from under the stones to devote herself to what she found most fulfilling: reading the Bible, putting it into practice and preaching. She belongs to the religious congregation of Jehovah's Christian Witnesses.
When I ask Isabel about boredom she answers that she doesn't know what it is. She neither knew it before she retired nor does she know it now. She never worried about having to face this emotion of having more free time after retirement because she knew she could dedicate it entirely to God, as well as to friends and family. Religion helps him to live from day to day, without thinking about what will come tomorrow.
Beyond that, Isabel was never interested in the activities that public and private bodies made available to the elderly to escape boredom. As is common in this series of interviews, she has never received any personalised offer through any channel and neither has she had to look for them because she already has everything she needs to be happy. In her case, even if she knew about these programmes she would not embark on new activities because she does not need them to fill her life. In Isabel's situation, boredom is neither there nor expected. Age-related health problems may come, but the door to boredom is completely closed.
What is not at all common is to find among the interviewees a person with a positive perception about retirement homes. Isabel is the only exception so far. Looking to the future, she would like to move into a nursing home when necessary. This way her children will not have to worry about whether she is cared for, she explains. Moreover, living in a nursing home is not such a bad idea for her: she has always heard that the elderly are comfortable there.
If there is one thing that Isabel may find problematic in old age, whether the elderly live in their own homes or in nursing homes, it is certainly not boredom, but loneliness. That is why she feels it is essential that older people have something to motivate them as they grow older and more and more lonely. That spring can well be found in the words of John 8:16 when he says "I am not alone because God is with me". She has not referred to this passage of the Bible, but it is precisely the one that gives her the conviction that she will never have to face something like boredom or loneliness. Her hope is that this interview will succeed in sending a message of hope to those who are lonely and bored, encouraging them to come closer to the Creator.
The interesting talk with Isabel and the background of the relationship between boredom and religion throughout history reminded me of what Pope Francis said from Vatican City during the Catechesis of 11 October 2017: "The Christian was not made for boredom, but for patience". It may be impatience with what is to come that leads older (and not so older) people to experience more meaninglessness and boredom towards the end of their lives. Of course, having the assurance of the prospect of the resurrection surely helps Isabel to train patience and to give meaning to her existence without boredom. But this, fortunately or unfortunately, is not within the reach of everyone, and I am not referring to the resurrection on earth itself, or to eternal life in heaven, or to reincarnation... but to the possibility of belief.
What I believe in is working hard to do everything in our power, in the power of researchers and social and political actors, in the power of carers and families, in the power of associations and institutions, to improve the quality of life of the elderly and to ensure their well-being, especially those most vulnerable who are counting on us to age with dignity. Perhaps Isabel is right, and religion is the answer to the distress and problems associated with ageing; I do not know. But what I find is that I intend to continue to promote through this medium, and as many as possible, cultural change in gerontological and geriatric care from the earthly plane.
