Keeping God on my mind makes me less present?

[bfree1216]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been struggling with one aspect of prayer recently that has me in a mental clutter. I feel like we are told to keep God on the mind at all times by priests, saints, and Catholic mystics alike. In practice however, I find that keeping God on my mind draws me entirely out of the present moment. I feel spacey, slow to answer my friends and colleagues, and simply disconnected from the world around me in a negative way.

I began to try to counteract this in ways that at the time, I didn’t realize were counter-intuitive: specifically ditching meditation on God and focusing on mindfulness (not in the good, God-centered way). Mindfulness was amazing in helping me solve the initial problem: I felt as if I could truly act as Christ and focus on the people around me rather than on God. This mindfulness, however, also led me to myself, and I felt pride rather than gratefulness for God.

Then, in trying to combine these two, I accidentally found myself engaged in pantheism. Pantheism helped me view God ~as~ everything, but then I realized that this wasn’t in accordance with Catholic doctrine.

Then, I tried viewing God through the lens of panentheism—still helped me maintain some sense of a creator God, but after consulting a Catholic theology professor at my university, I realized this wasn’t in accordance with Catholic doctrine either.

Now I’m back at this entirely dualistic viewpoint of Catholicism, and I’m stuck. Dualism is obviously Catholic doctrine that can’t be refuted, but viewing God as distinct from what’s going on around me forces me to decide if I’m going to focus on God and abandon being attentive to those around me, focus on the world around me and abandon focusing on God, or simply hurt my brain trying to focus on both at the same time

I’d appreciate your insights, and how to avoid absent-mindedness while avoiding New Age or Eastern spirituality! Thanks in advance!

(cross-posted to r/Catholicism)

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you ever loved a relationship partner or spouse, they were on your mind all day in the background, and usually you weren’t so absent-minded that you couldn’t function. Maybe once in a while when you had just met or were having an especially romantic day, you’d get a little hazy, but they weren’t constantly taking up your mind to the point of interfering with your work, etc.

That’s how God should be on your mind. Like a loved one, there but when necessary, in the background.

 

[bfree1216]

This makes so much sense. Thank you so much! Framing it like this helps a ton.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Maybe once in a while when you had just met

Isn’t that what’s happening here though?

specifically ditching meditation on God

Don’t stop because it’s an uncomfortable mesh with your daily life. You’ll get used to it, and it should seem like a new balance.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Maybe once in a while when you had just met

Yeah, but I get the person is “trying too hard” because they read or were taught something, but don’t know how to apply it.
If you’re taught God as a child by your parents or teachers, then they kind of teach you how you keep God on your mind throughout the day, by mentioning Him from time to time. “Look at the beautiful day God gave us,” or “Now we say grace and thank God for our food” or “What would Jesus want us to do in this situation?” or “Let’s put ourselves in the presence of God and pray before we start our school day” etc. You spend a couple minutes thinking about God, then turn to him when necessary throughout the day. But you’re not going through all the actions of breakfast, math class, or a trip to the supermarket trying to simultaneously think about God and do your activity. This would be very difficult for anyone who had not spent many years praying and possibly practicing meditation techniques.

One thing I do that has helped me, that I think I got from this forum, is just think of Jesus as being with me all the time, so if I’m eating lunch alone, Jesus is there, getting to eat a hamburger with me. Somebody said that through our activities, Jesus gets to experience things he never could in his time on earth because they didn’t exist yet, like riding in a car, tasting our modern food etc. Another thing is whenever I see some particularly awesome natural phenomenon, like a beautiful view, I say, “oh that’s so nice, thank you God for showing me that.”

 

[Shakuhachi]

Sounds like too much philosophy. I have been there. Just keep your Mind on God’s companionship. Not only personal companionship but actual involvement in the events and encounters in your life.

 

[Opal0427]

There are a lot of ways to keep God present in our hearts without being in the middle of meditation in public. One is to serve Christ in others! And to practice virtue, to put good things in our mind when watching media, to give God little mini prayer updates & thanks throughout the day, to offer even small annoyances as redemptive suffering for others.

If you’re practicing virtue and love in all.you do, anything can become a prayer because you’re doing in gratitude for God’s love. Saints have talked about that. That everything from doing dishes to interacting with others can be a prayer itself when done for love of God.