Quotes about Distraction

Sin diverts some. Pleasure diverts others. Social service and "religious" activity divert others. We are told to be occupied with Jesus Christ Himself.

America is said to have the highest per capita boredom of any spot on earth! We know that because we have the greatest variety and greatest number of artificial amusements of any country. People have become so empty that they can't even entertain themselves.

Money takes our minds off God.

But what marvel that I was thus carried away to vanities, and went out from Thy presence, O my God, when men were set before me as models.

A warrior without pretension was unencumbered by distraction.

Martha, seeking to serve the Lord according to her own thoughts, was distracted and diverted. The

There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.

Every time you close another door—be it the door of immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection—you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into the heart of God.

But our task is the opposite of distraction. Our task is to help people concentrate on the real but often hidden event of God's active presence in their lives. Hence, the question that must guide all organizing activity in a parish is not how to keep people busy, but how to keep them from being so busy that they can no longer hear the voice of God who speaks in silence.

Worrying causes us to be "all over the place," but seldom at home. One way to express the spiritual crisis of our time is to say that most of us have an address but cannot be found there. We know where we belong, but we keep being pulled away in many directions, as if we were still homeless. "All these other things" keep demanding our attention. They lead us so far from home that we eventually forget our true address, that is, the place where we can be addressed.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, to life itself, than this incessant business.

Will You help me hear the song You're singing over all this noise?