On Distraction in Prayer, Wisdom from Anthony Bloom, and Befriending What Surfaces

A Note from Me

When I first started praying the Jesus Prayer, I expected a deep sense of stillness. Instead, I ran into distraction—wave after wave.

The moment I closed my eyes, my mind took off in a hundred directions. I’d remember an email I forgot to send, replay a conversation from yesterday, think about dinner, or getting my oil changed. It was like my brain had been waiting for silence just so it could get louder.

At first, I fought it. I got frustrated, assumed I was doing something wrong.

So, I explored different ways to stay present. Some days, it was a prayer rope, the knotted strands keeping a steady rhythm as I whispered the words. I held smooth prayer beads, feeling their weight as I breathed in and out. Sometimes, I simply clasped a wooden palm cross, letting its shape remind me of the life I was aiming for.

Every technique sharpened my focus a little, but none could erase distraction entirely. Eventually, I had to accept the truth: I couldn’t. At best, I could lessen their pull, but the real lesson wasn’t about eliminating distractions. It was about befriending them.

Distractions aren’t the enemy. They’re me—my worries, my unfinished thoughts, my life showing up in prayer.

From Chapter 6 of my first book Dwelling in Christ: Discover the Threefold Path of Spiritual Transformation

A Voice from the Christian Tradition

“If we try to pray continuously, we will be defeated quite soon; but if we choose moments intelligently we can do it.

If you do that you will be able to pray. You can experiment, but don’t forget to be sober because there is a sin which the Spiritual Fathers call spiritual greed, which consists of wanting to have more and more of God at a moment when you should be put on a diet and have just a little and enough for you.”

—Anthony Bloom, Beginning to Pray​

A Question to Carry

What would it look like to befriend your distractions this week?

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More soon,
—Jon