The Importance of Doing Nothing

“I am so distracted during prayer! What do I need to do in my prayer time to change that?” 

There isn’t a lot we can do about it during prayer, except gently to bring ourselves back when we notice (though closing our eyes does help, and this commonsense measure is often overlooked) The real work of overcoming distractions happens outside of the actual prayer times, and a great tool for this is doing nothing. 

“I can never get enough of doing nothing.”  ~ G.K. Chesterton

We don’t do enough nothing. We run about, we have so much going on, and we consume quantities of high-stimulus media (reading an action or romance novel, watching a movie, playing a phone game); we call those things “doing nothing,” but they are more just unproductive busyness as opposed to our productive busyness.

Often, the only time we are unoccupied is when we are at prayer. All of a sudden we stop the thousand and one things we are doing and kneel down or sit with our book, and say, “I’m going to let all that go and pray now.” And it is not very successful.

Our minds are like a home next to a construction site. All day the air is full of shouting and banging and heavy machinery, drowning out all but the loudest sounds. Then, when the workers go home, we can suddenly hear our phone ringing, the baby crying, and the delivery man hooting at our gate. These things were already happening, but we simply could not hear them, what with all the noise. When we don’t stop and let ourselves be unoccupied for a little while, we don’t hear our own thoughts, and they pile up. As soon as we have cleared a little space, there they are, demanding our time and attention. When this only happens in the time we set aside for prayer, our prayer is inevitably filled with distractions, and we accidentally sabotage our good intentions.

Nothing is when we let ourselves be unoccupied. We might still be doing something, but it is a single activity that allows freedom to think, or we might just be watching the sunset or the wind in the trees. 

Take 10 or 15 minutes a day to just stop. To do nothing. Let the mental machinery go quiet and see what comes up. Some thoughts just need an answer on the spot, some need written down to deal with later. Some just need to be heard, and then they can go away forever, like an old birthday card we haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but don’t really need to keep once we do. Try it and see. It will be more difficult than you expect, and may bring up more than you bargained for, but it will clear the way for interior silence, and so will make it possible to actually pray during prayer time. 

Source: Nova et Vetera - December 2024