Mothers Love Boredom

Elie is bored. For the last few months, he hasn’t been the commander of a team of soldiers. Instead, he’s been the commander of the commanders of several teams of soldiers. The soldiers go to their commanders, as they once went to Elie. If the commanders need permission or advice, they go to Elie. They come to Elie, who helps determine the schedule of operations, and then they go back and enforce them. Elie is bored.

Elie has other responsibilities for coordinating, scheduling and whatever else he does. To accomplish this, he has an assistant. But the assistant needed an operation and so was out of the army on sick leave for the last few months, leaving Elie to handle things on his own. He’s been working very hard doing his jobs and those of his assistant.

Well, thankfully, the assistant (another commander with less experience than Elie) is back and so Elie can now accomplish his tasks more quickly and more easily. He’s bored.

He got used to doing the jobs early and fast, to leave him time for the other tasks. Now the other tasks don’t exist because his junior commander is back and handling them. Yesterday, Elie got up, did what he had to do, and realized he had no more responsibilities for the next 20 hours. He wishes he had brought up the new mini-computer so at least he could surf and play.

And, as he told me this, as a bit of a complaint about being bored, I thought to myself, “Bored is good. I like bored. Mothers love boredom.”

May my son and all our sons be bored…and safe…always. Okay, perhaps that’s overdoing it. I don’t really want him to be bored, but bored is better than endangered, so I’ll take bored for this beautiful day when the clouds are drifting over the skies of Jerusalem and the heat wave has broken. I’ll take bored and the sleep it lets me get.

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