For as long as I can remember, I have had this problem. When I pray in groups or when I listen to someone leading a public prayer, I have a terrible time focusing on the prayer. It’s sort of like the mental equivalent of the TV trope of not knowing what to do with your hands. My thoughts are just there, doing stuff, and they shouldn’t be. They should hold still and focus on God, or echo the prayer, or repeat “amen” just to keep doing something holy. But sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they wander off on their own, daydreaming, worrying, thinking about bills, or thinking about my next conversation. What’s even worse is when these thoughts turn cynical. When they catch onto a phrase in the prayer that seems theologically incorrect, or corny, or insincere. And I start subtly criticizing the prayer or thinking about some theological concept.
The same thing happens in worship. Instead of focusing on the lyrics and being in the presence of God worshiping in the communion of saints, my thoughts will be be scattered, thinking about my kids standing next to me, about an email I need to send, about the quality of the lyrics, about the use of sight-rhyme in the song, or noting when the song modulates. In other words, I’m terrible at being there but not there when it comes to the basic liturgies of worship: prayer and singing.
Let me say that I don’t experience this cynicism and distraction all the time. But it does happen enough to trouble my spirit. I confess all this as a character flaw. It’s nothing to be proud about. I’m not proud of it. But I suspect it’s also more normal than we’d like to admit, which is why I’m confessing it. Unlike so many other problems in our society, I don’t think this is primarily about our phones. I had all these struggles in the age when I was playing “Snake” on my Nokia 3310—and even before then! No, this is something deeper. Something to do with a restless heart, prejudices against our brothers and sisters, and an unwillingness to be in the here-and-now.
