2 hours a week is not enough

Some of my biggest struggles in my Christian life have to do with holdovers from pre-Christian days.  Take attention span, for instance.

I don't know if it's my chronic lack of sleep or my less-than-stellar eating habits or if maybe I'm just easily distractable, it could be all three, but I have trouble paying attention in church.  Not just sometimes, like after a particularly hard night with the baby or having just bickered with my husband over something trivial just as we walk into the sanctuary.  No, this is a repetitive problem.  A weekly problem.

I'm helped along in this by the fact that my bible has all sorts of interesting study notes and quotes and maps in it that I can read, and usually do.  I've read Max Lucado stories and bits of Proverbs and done the whole 'read a passage and then read the footnotes about it and then read all the suggested 'further reading' mentioned in the footnotes and so on' thing.  Oh, I've done it all.  I've taken to giving David the bible to hold so I'm not tempted, but then I fiddle with the bulletin.

Yup, the men's prayer breakfast is still on Saturday, good to know.  Oh, but the outreach group is meeting at six instead of seven?  Good thing I checked that.  I'm not a member but still, it's obviously important to stay up to date on these things.

Okay so no bulletin allowed.  And I can't play with the baby because I've handed him to the nursery staff.  Just as well.  Stop picking at that button.  Focus.  Focus.  Where did that scab come from?

We sit right up front.  RIGHT up front.  Behind the pastor.  Hopefully this would have helped a bit but, unfortunately, no.  I still drift.  I have, and I'm embaressed even to admit this, I have closed my eyes and daydreamed.  I like to think I look like I'm praying earnestly but actually I probably look asleep.  I remember falling asleep once while doing this but I was hugely pregnant at the time so I don't think that counts.  I couldn't stand for the hymns I was so pregnant.

But I've gotten better.  You're probably all gasping and wondering how I could possibly have been any worse unless I showed up in pajamas and loudly ate pizza through the service.  Now I can tell you what the sermon was about if you were to ask me later in the week.  I can probably remember some passages.  I can remember some lyrics which tells me they are at least getting into my brain even if I'm not aware of it.  This, sadly enough, has not always been the case.

I think it was hard for me, converting later in life, to settle into this thing we call church.  The closest thing in my pre-Christian world would have been a university lecture, and although I loved learning and reading and discussing in school I was never great at sitting still and being spoken to.  And now every week I get all stressed about trying to not look homeless or like a bad parent and then going somewhere where people are going to want to shake my hand, touch my child and ask me questions and then I'm going to sit still for thirty minutes while something is explained to me.  Lots and lots of explaining.

The strange thing is, I don't find the sermons boring or irrelevant.  When I can listen I really do find them useful and helpful with my own study, so why can't I focus?  I think the answer to that is multi-faceted.  Firstly, like almost every other North American I live in a society that values the ability to multi-task and actively encourages quick thinking.  Picture all the little boys out there with the reflexes of fighter pilots from the video games they play and you'll have an idea of what I mean.  I spend my entire week living in a world of 30-minute suppers, super-quick washer cycles, and co-ordinated wardrobes where every shirt matches every pair of pants you own for fast dressing.  I follow this myself, more because I've never known anything else than because I believe it's the best way to live.  Last night I watched a cooking show and suddenly two women were discussing whether they pee in the shower.  I'm not kidding you.  The older one said something like "I've gotten to a point in my life where I have the time to go to the bathroom and I have the time to bathe."  REALLY???  This is an issue for some people, is it?  Time to separately bathe and pee? 

So that's one part of it.  The rest is a bit harder to pin down.  I think to a certain extent it has to do with thinking that a sermon has 'nothing to do with me', which is probably not true.  Most sermons have something for everyone in them because none of us is perfect or all-knowing.  A third part is that when I do listen I often find myself with so many questions that I can't keep up with the minister's train of thought.  And finally, though not the least of my issues, is that church is once a week and it's hard hard hard to live like church is everyday.  You've heard the adage "if you look at where you spend your money you can see what's important to you."  It's the same with time; here I've said this man, this saviour, is the most important thing in my life.  But there are 168 hours in a week and I spend about 2 of those hours in His house.  Yes, yes, there is Thursday bible study and personal prayer and so on...but church is 2 hours.

I'm not the only one.  What does this say about us?