For the past month, I have been the T.A. in an algebra class at a homeschool co-op. There are five students, a teacher, and me. Doing nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Ok, every once in a while I am the subject of a story problem. And amusingly, the teacher (maybe a decade older than me) thought I was a student the first day, stoking my ego, a little bit. But I am there not to assist, really, but for liability reasons.
So I sit. In the back. Doing nothing.
I have my phone and yes, I have submitted to the temptation of checking Facebook on it. Ben is concurrently in a computer coding class so he has my laptop. And I am trying to not be a distraction so try to behave myself on the phone and wouldn't have my laptop anyway.
All of which has led me to this. I am not really sure how to sit for an hour and do nothing.
The last two weeks have been full of suffering and death and this hour gives me time to pray. Sit-still prayer not really being my specialty. I'm a prayer tosser. I fling prayers toward the sky and rarely sit back to listen these days.
This week I snuck a journal into the class disguised in a notebook. I did journal two pages, the second entry in the journal; the first page written over a year ago.
Until this experience I didn't realize how little time I spend in quiet reflection. I do spend time every day and I knew I wasn't giving the contemplative mystics any competition but I thought I could do it, "if only I had time." This hour has shown me a huge deficit in my ability to sit still, devoid of all distractions save five silly, math-challenged adolescents. I am brought back to my lack of concentrated time in prayer.
I could blame our fast-paced, electronic-ridden, distracted society. But the truth is....It's just me.
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