Many Cultures Still Don't Have a Word for Boredom

Science writer Winifred Gallagher argues that what we call boredom (which she defines as "the unpleasant sense that there is nothing that interests ...

Lives of 95 Percent Boredom, 5 percent Terror

I saw a troubling quote today. I was reading a news story about an NYPD detective named James Zadroga who had died from lung problems. Following 9/11, ...

Pete Rose Describes Gambling Addiction

After 14 years of denials, Pete Rose has finally come clean and admitted he bet on baseball while manager of the Cincinnati Reds.

Rose says he was a big-time ...

Where Do We Find Contentment?

John Rosemond, a funny nationally syndicated columnist—and also a family psychologist—likes to take unusual informal polls of parents. Whenever ...

Standing at Judgment

Our student body settled down for another session of daydreaming as our college president launched into one of his weekly Monday morning messages. Though ...

Bored with a Boring God?

I do not know why so much of mainline Protestantism has become a joyless religion. Perhaps we are more impressed by the problems of the world than by ...

The Puzzle of Bad Living

The puzzle is why so many people live so badly. Not so wickedly but so inanely. Not so cruelly but so stupidly. There's little to admire and less ...

How Long Is Too Long?

I do not think we should use television as the measure of all attention spans. I have heard people of all ages listen for hours as a speaker or two gives ...

Dry Rot and Worms in the Church

An English vicar with his mind on decaying buildings announced one day that the offertory about to be taken would be devoted in its entirety to the extermination ...

Christ Was No Bore

The dogma we find so dull--this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero--if this is dull, then what, in Heaven's name, is worthy to be ...