Can you not focus for one hour?

In order to read this Harvard Business Review blog post with my full attention, I printed it out and took it into another room, away from the computer and cellphone.  "Take Back Your Attention," the author urges us. Taylor-Burton Edwards of the General Board of Discipleship sent the link to me, following up on an interview  yesterday for a story about “tech sabbaths” – how some of us are choosing to “fast” periodically from Facebook, Twitter, texting, email, cellphone, Blackberry or any of the other many ways we’re hyper-connected on any given day.

The HBR post talks about how all these distractions fragment our attention and even damage our ability to focus and concentrate.  Author Tony Schwartz writes from a business perspective – he says all this compromises our efficiency and our potential for success, and I think he’s spot on.  But I see this also as a matter of faith.  The Bible says that we are made in the image of God; what distinguishes us from animals, I think, is our ability to be intentional about our attention.  We can think about our own thoughts. We can choose to focus on one thing and not another.  But we relinquish that when we allow our attention to be tyrannized by the next ping on the cellphone or the next pop-up on the computer screen.

 

(And trust me, I’m not scolding here – I’m a sinner myself in this area. And I’ve noticed how much more scattered I’m becoming, the more I allow all these devices to distract me.)

 

So what’s the answer? If you look at Mr. Schwartz’s suggestions, they sound a lot like spiritual disciplines.   It seems to me the Christian notion of ‘spiritual formation’ – a conscious and intentional approach to what we allow into our hearts and minds and what we choose to nourish there -- has wisdom to offer for this modern dilemma.  

 

And as I think of all this, I can’t help but think of Jesus’ words to his sleepy disciples, who failed to stay focused enough to pray with him in the garden of Gethsemane: “Could you not tarry one hour?”