Monkey Mind

Does your mind leap from one thing to another?

Has your mind made yet another leap since you started reading?

Have you often found yourself restless in prayer?

Not quite like going cold-turkey from a busy life, but not far off either!

 

Is it a triumph when concentration exceeds 20 seconds?

Do the thoughts of what needs doing cruise through your mind like an F1 racing car?

Or do they meandre like a cow slowly chewing the cud?

Are you ever relieved when prayer time is “finished”?

Do you ever rush through a set time of prayer?

Engage Sunday Prayer time?  Avoid weekly prayer time?

Not because you’re in a hurry but because you’re so deep in worry.

I’m not writing this to judge you; I’m writing to nudge you.

Do you try and make yourself long for God;

But you just know you could always long a little bit more – Oh the failure of my flesh.

 

What do I want out of my life?

What do we want out of our life?

What do you want?

Can you answer that before knowing there’s a pile of ironing to get through?

The cleaning, the cooking, the bedtime bathing, DIY!  Why oh why?

 

How often have you wandered off since I started writing?

There’s all the unfinished conversations.

Not least those in your family and work and maybe even your house.

Why wait til I die to tell others the good things about what I meant to you?

Ooops.  That comment most likely brought you back into the zone.

Sorry about that.  

Where was I?

 

Oh yeah.  Our lives before God and each other.

Prayer.  Before God with others.

But our leaping, restless minds.

What some have called the “Monkey Mind”* – always leaping about.
Full of concerns and other very important things.

 

Let Christ walk among your monkeys right now, and banish some if need be.

Settle down you monkeys of my mind and on my back.

We belong to Christ, and we are talking to him now!

Let us walk through the monkey’s of our mind with Christ right now.

Let us, in prayer, ‘raise the mind and the heart to God’ (St. John of Damascus).

Let us long for God afresh, starting right now.

 

And if that’s a struggle; if you don’t feel like longing for God or if you do, know this:

That God longs for you more than you can ever long for Him.

So start where you are, one monkey at a time;

With Christ, by the Spirit, to the Father:  GOD.

 

Teresa of Avila says, “Let nothing disturb you; let nothing trouble you.  Everything past; God alone remains.”

 

Christianity is learning the difference between a Monkey Mind and the Mind of Christ, and that is why we need Jesus, by His Spirit to “teach us to pray” . . . Abba, Father. . . . 

 

“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.” (1 Thess. 5:23-24)

 

 

 

•  I recently came across this interesting term, and found it described on psychologytoday.com as, “According to Buddhist principles, the “monkey mind” is a term that refers to being unsettled, restless, or confused.”  Although a Buddhist term, it is easily a human race infliction and the application into Christian prayer is an obvious one!
• This s