On Christmas Eve, I went to Vigil Office and Midnight Mass (which was actually at 8.30, not midnight…) at Turvey Abbey.
Something happened that both amused me and gave me ample opportunity to reflect on how many layers of the onion I still have to peel as I make my way along this path of life and awareness.
It happens I was behind a family, including a young girl of about eight next to her mother. The two of them were directly in front of me. The service was very beautiful, but also long and quite intense, and so when the girl started fidgeting and whispering to her mother I mentally cut her some slack.
The fidgeting continued: rocking from side to side, stepping from one foot to the other, leaning against her mother, looking round at different people, playing with her hair. All punctuated by frequent whispered conversations with the mother.
Through it all I thought peacefully that there was a time when I would really have let this behaviour get to me. I reflected that when I was that age, my mother would have made me stand still and would have refused to engage in a whispered conversation with me during Mass.
But, I thought to myself, times change, and I had obviously mellowed because I wasn’t in the least angry. And as the action in front of me continued, so ran my thoughts.And no, I really wasn’t angry, but I suddenly realised that my reflections along these lines were taking up at least as much of my attention as irritation would have done. The emotion may have been different but the result was the same – I was totally distracted from being present to prayer.
And then having realised this, was I able to release the distraction and return my attention to the service? No, because I immediately started planning this blog post and how I would tell you all about it!
The physical fidgeting of the girl in front of me was probably more distracting to others than my own no doubt serene exterior, but my mental fidgeting perfectly matched her physical jiggling about. It struck me that the physical fidgeting was the perfect manifestation of what Buddhists call ‘monkey mind’.
Oh dear, just when we think we’re making progress…
Meanwhile, elsewhere in cyberspace:
Check out Abdur Rahman’s two posts reflecting Muslim teachings on Jesus from the Maryam Surah. The first is here, and second here.
And for fun, don’t miss my first stop motion animation film at my other blog here.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Planning the blog post while it is happening – so been there. What is so fantastic is that “holy” can look and manifest in so many ways. Beautiful.
Oh, my, too funny!
I went to midnight mass (at midnight, actually) and sat in front of what I later referred to as “the wiggle family.” No children, mind you. A family of adults who could not stop rifling loudly through the missal; at one point, one of them dropped their heavy purse onto our pew as we all were standing.
Then during the light-dimmed Silent Night I had a hard time “feeling holy” (HA!), because the organist was doing something strange that did not fit into my idea of that moment.
BUT…as you point out, this time I was not out and out angry and I did notice all of my own reactions and the humor in my experience-blocking expectations.
Though, of course, having waited all year for midnight mass, I wouldn’t have minded having only other holy people there with me…(I hope my facetious, making-fun-of-self is as blatant as I mean it to be).
Tess, I love your self-awareness in this post and honesty! You gave me another smile, after those adorable cats. What a refreshing way to begin my day.
i am sooooo there with you! i laughed outloud at the “post planning”…one little small thing that i remember from mindfulness training is for you to be aware of your emotion in the moment, thank it and then try to move back to the present…during my practice of centering prayer this season, i only have to do that about 20,000 times during my 20 minute “session.” oh how god must smile and delight in all of our silliness!
Hi Tess
The self-awareness is the real progress… and the ability to at least execute the blog that you planned – unlike me!
Shrek refers to himself as having layers and look at how far he has progressed!
Thanks for bringing a smile to my face after my first day back at work after the Christmas break.
I love how you keep thinking about how you’re not letting her distract you. Also, thanks so much for the fascinating Abdur Rahman posts. We’re studying the Faith Club in my mom’s group at church, and these shed great light on some of our discussions. Thanks!
Thanks everyone, glad this had echoes for you. And Pam, you’re welcome – Abdur is a really knowledgeable and interesting writer about Islam, and his poetry is just beautiful as well.
Tess, Apparently we all relate well to “monkey-mind”!!! Although I am NOT recommending the following to you, this is a story I enjoy sharing – As a rector’s wife – I guess that’s the reason the parishioner called me, because I was the rector’s wife – I received a call complaining that there was a small boy sitting in front of her every Sunday with his parents and he was just a total wiggler – all over the place, whispering in loud tones, dropping things, tapping his feet – anyway, she wanted to know what “I” suggested she do about this bother of a child. I recommended that she move herself to another part of the church – she was not happy with me for that answer!:) But it continues to entertain me:)
BTW – this same small boy, 5 years later, sits quietly during even the longest of services with his family now right up front in the church. His parents were patient, not too harsh, and with promises of better views for him of the action taking place “up front” he is darned near perfectly behaved now. Some times it just takes a while……and like I said, this was not THE solution for your midnight mass situation:) and aren’t some of our finest blog comments birthed in those “monkey mind” states?
xoxo
The parish where my children grew up had an old stone baptistry with the inscription “Suffer the little children to come unto me” carved around it. That took on a whole new meaning when my own kids were little and wiggly, and I think of it often, with a smile, when others’ children act the same way. To be truly “the work of the people,” doesn’t liturgy have to include room for some sighs and fidgeting, as well as some spinning of our minds in other directions?
@SS: What a lovely story. I would have suggested exactly the same as you – why knowingly sit in the same space each week? And how nice to hear of the small boy’s progress. Your comment reminded me of when my brother Philip was little (the brother with Down’s syndrome who died this year). He was very affectionate and was always wanting to be picked up to cuddle and kiss Dad while we were at Sunday Mass. My father was quite self-conscious about this and in the end he asked a couple of the parishioners who sat nearby if they were disturbed by this behaviour. They both said it was a beautiful part of their weekly Mass experience, to see this love between father and son so easily expressed. I remembered that in years afterwards when Philip continued to act in ‘inappropriately’ loud, joyful and spontaneous ways! (His singing voice was murder, but he did enjoy bellowing out the hymns loudly in any lack of key that seemed right to him!)
@Ann: Thanks for this comment and you are so right. I like your ‘take’ on the inscription. Christ’s words about children were so important to me when I was myself a child. Although I had a very happy childhood, my parents were good liberal socialists who made us aware that not all children were well-treated and that humans created great injustice in the world. I remember being very pleased on behalf of these children that Christ said this about little children and the fate that would befall those who mistreated them.
Great story. Thanks for sharing it with us. Yes the onion has many, many layers, so many it is hard to wrap the mind around it. Peace, Molly
Molly, welcome, thanks for visiting and for your comment. Peace.
I’m the father of a three year-old boy. In churches I constantly switch between trying to get snatches of mindful presence for myself, and keeping him reasonably in line. And as a further complication, there’s the slighty different attitudes my wife and I have to what constitutes appropriate behaviour for a three-year-old in church.
Part of the current modus operandi in the family is that once a month I go to mass alone.
An Anglican priest we know keeps a box of toys for young children, on the floor in front of the front pew. No hiding of children in back corners in this church! It leads to a bit of shuffling at communion time, but works well, and as SS points out, gives children a good view of the action.
Anthony, welcome, and thank you for your comment, it’s really helpful to have this from the perspective of father and husband – and oh yes, those ‘slight differences’ in attitude between us and our loved ones! Both the toys and your monthly solo mass sound like sensible adjustments to me. There’s such a danger, isn’t there, that we will make ‘churchgoing’ merely dull for children (and adults too, sometimes, but that’s another discussion).
This all totally sounded familiar! I am often distracted as much mentally as I am emotionally. Getting to that place where prayer is deep and meaningful instead of the regular half plate of fast food is hard to do – and I totally blame “monkey mind” for mine!
Happy New Year, Tess. May your journey find you in a whole new place this time next year.
This is all very familiar. I know how easily I can be distracted from prayer – I find myself thinking about what I need to do next, how I wish the prayer would finish so that I can get on with “real life”. And wiggly children? Oh yes, that happens in Baha’i gatherings too. But the love and patience of parents and others eventually gives the child the ability to sit quietly and absorb the holiness of the moment.
Peace, one and all…
An interesting and funny post, as usual. I can relate to all those prayer distractions. One of the things about Muslim prayer is that it is done in lines: we all bend together and we all prostrate together. Nothing like smelly socks to puncture that ‘feeling of holiness’! Young children generally don’t prayer, but often run around the mosque – as my own have many times – which can make for very noisy mosques!
As for my own distractions, Allah!!, I think it’s more a case of finding the odd bit of concentration here and there amidst a sea of distraction!
Jules, Barney and Abdur, thank you for your comments. And Abdur, having seen film of Muslim prayer lines, you have answered for me a question I’ve never liked to ask any Muslim man: I had often wondered about the possibility of smelly socks!!