Franciscan Fractal
Contemplating Today’s Culture through the Eyes of St. Francis & the Life of Christ
“The Attraction of Distraction”
“My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.”
Jeremiah 8:18
For the prophet Jeremiah, his unheeded warnings about Israel’s potential demise if they did not return to God was about as much as he could take. Jeremiah broke down upon witnessing the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of its people. Whatever memories of home that he had were gone. His being was filled with grief reflected in his tear-filled eyes. Sickness overwhelmed his heart, and any remaining joy disappeared.
Our initial reaction could be the same. We most likely would ask, “Why did Judah not listen to Jeremiah and return to the Lord?” The easy answer is because they were a “wicked, bad, sinful, and an unrepentant people.” However, I think in reality, these were a people who were simply distracted – distracted from a God that seemed far away from them, and so they were led to do other things.
The stories of Scripture are often there to inform (and warn) us of how similar the people of the Bible are like us today. Moral lessons are easily overlooked when we see the characters in Scripture as being people who are “unlike” us. If we see them as similar, we often become uncomfortable. We tell ourselves that we are not like them, and in doing so we dodge any lessons that we might learn from a living God.
To be honest, it is difficult to stay continually focused on God in our daily lives. As children, we are not always taught on how to focus on God. Parents are often pulled in many directions and are seldom focused, so children do not learn what it is to focus. As we grow, we are distracted by multimodal electronic sights and sounds. Longing for personal contact, we choose to connect with screen images that portray illusions of intimacy. In so doing, we spend less time with face-to-face encounters than with God. And, our excuse, “I don’t have time,” which means that I am being “distracted” by something else.
Overcoming distraction is what God desires of us. “I am the Lord your God . . . you shall have no other Gods before me.” (Exodus 20:2a,3) Moreover, “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and soul, and strength and mind.” (Mark 12:30) One of the first steps in overcoming distraction is to identify the thing that distracts us, and label it. Once exposed, it is easier to navigate through the distraction.
St. Francis gave us an anecdote for identifying a distraction. Caught in a winter storm, St. Francis was about to give up on his life’s mission. He longed for the warmth of a home with a family and all of its security. Suddenly, the Devil appeared. Feigning sympathy for St. Francis, the Devil told him to build several snowmen (people). When finished, there were seven figures. One of the figures was that of a woman who would be his wife. The four small figures in front of her were his children to be, two boys and two girls. The other two figures represented a maidservant and a manservant.
Realizing that this was a ploy by the Devil to distract him from his mission of being a follower of Christ, St. Francis rolled around in the cold snow until he fought off the images. He then made snowballs, and destroyed the seven snowmen. At this sight, the Devil departed having been rejected and defeated. St. Francis had overcome his distraction.
While a bit melodramatic, St. Francis does capture the importance of identifying a distraction and the arduous journey that may be required to identify it. Distraction at first may seem like something good in your life. Eventually, the truth will come out when you compare the distraction to the ultimate attraction that God is putting in front of you.
Our choice then becomes whether or not we care to embrace it or throw snowballs at it.
Prayers and Blessings,
Fr. John
