The Dance of Distractions
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
John 10:10
I love this little section.
And it says so much about us in our modern lives.
So much we can read into it.
“Martha was distracted with much serving.”
At first glance, this seems to be a good thing.
After all, isn’t it good to serve?
But Jesus’s response was so interesting and even strange.
“Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
That is such a layered response.
And one we can plug directly into our lives.
In fact, within that response is the key to salvation.
And not just salvation of our souls,
But salvation of our spirit,
And salvation of our time here on earth.
Let’s break it down.
Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary.
The first sentence
He says her name twice.
Pointing to our dual natures.
The distracted aspect of us, tuned into the goings-on of the world, anxious and concerned.
Living in fear.
Putting on appearances.
Judging and condemning.
Pretending to be righteous.
Martha displaying all of these.
The other side of our nature,
Devout.
Concerned with the eternal.
Focused.
In a state of surrender.
Mary exemplifies this aspect of us.
And Jesus is very clear.
When he says “one thing is necessary.”
One thing is a necessity.
Indispensable.
And maybe you think,
“Yeah, but Jesus ain’t in my crib and potentially hungry.
So what’s this got to do with me and my actual life?”
It has everything to do with all of us, all the time.
And the distractions of life, which are amping up and ever increasing.
Let’s modernize it.
Martha, Martha,
Is out here scrolling on her phone,
Constantly checking Instagram,
Doing busy work,
Engaged in drama and gossip,
And basically putting her attention everywhere,
But the kingdom of heaven within,
Or the I am,
Or presence.
For we are always invited, and even expected, to sit at the foot of the father,
To be devoted to presence,
Or to act as Mary is,
Of which Jesus says,
“Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
The good portion.
The portion is of interest.
Because we assume Martha is dealing with food,
Which is also typically defined by portions.
So we can extrapolate that Jesus is talking about
The portions of soul food, or food for the soul,
And the ability to always choose,
That which will not be taken away,
Or the eternal,
As opposed to the busy body junk food of the moment,
That has no actual nutrition.
So in this little story, we are confronted by the reality that what we choose to give our attention to is everything.
This is also interesting.
Martha’s judgment, which reflects the inevitable pushback from the world,
When you switch your focus from the external to the eternal/internal.
“Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.”
When you focus within,
Or sit at the feet of the father,
You remove yourself from the pack.
And you will at first become an uncomfortable reflection,
And even a threat.
It’s crazy to think about, but it’s true, and it’s not hard to see why.
As it is the crux of the spiritual battle we are all always in, all the time.
Those distracted by the world are comforted by pretending that these choices don’t exist,
That there is no eternal portion,
And that the noise of the world is everything.
And so the judgment will come, and the request of
“Hey, stop acting like that and start acting like me,” is inevitable.
And can and will manifest into something quite a bit more aggressive than that.
Your devotion at the feet of the father,
Your devotion to presence,
Spending significant time in silence focused on the eternal,
And communion with God seeking his revelations,
Isn’t casual at all.
But an act of war against the devil and an army of demons.
You aren’t chilling,
You are stepping onto the front lines of an ancient conflict with forces more powerful than any singular man.
So Martha’s seemingly off-hand and relatively innocuous suggestion is anything but.
Within it is all the dramas of the world,
And countless souls buried beneath.
2
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.
Mary didn’t just sit at his feet;
And give him her attention.
But she listened to his teaching.
This points to the lesson that when we seek the father,
When we sit in silence or presence,
We are being taught.
We aren’t just sitting in void or beingness,
Overcoming desire,
By some grueling act of will,
When all the fancy flashing lights of the world are now in our pockets all the time.
But rather we are being taught something.
We come to the place of communion with the creator of all things,
Who is absolutely engaged with us in a personal way.
The devil’s chief concern and primary tactic is to keep us distracted by the superficial and transitory.
He does this by arousing conflict and exaggerated emotion.
He’s a goofball saying, “Look at this;
Now look at this.”
He’s your best friend at the high school party saying,
“I can’t believe she said that about you!”
He’s the toxic boss putting you down in front of your coworkers.
He’s the flash of porn that somehow comes up on your Twitter feed.
He’s all those things and more.
He is invested in you staying angry and unforgiving,
So that you may never know peace enough to be able to sit in undistracted silence at all.
It’s really that simple of a game.
The whole game of life can be broken down by this.
Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village. And a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.”
John 10:10
Martha was distracted by much serving.
What are you serving?
Who are you in service to?
It may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you know you gotta serve somebody – Bob Dylan.
“Much serving.”
This is a slight as well.
Serving “much.”
One who is all over the place,
Like a chicken with their head cut off.
The devil wants you reduced to this.
Mary sitting at his feet focused.
And why at his feet?
Certainly, the woke would be offended by this.
A woman sitting at the feet of a man in deep devotion.
Obviously not just a man in this case, but you get my point.
Devotion and surrender and submission are utterly necessary.
Because what we are submitting and surrendering is the demonic or egocentric aspects that rage on in us all,
Which are provoked by the movements of the world when we make such strong declarations of war.
Make no mistake about it,
Your attention is being vied for all the time.
And if we have any free will at all,
Which I believe we totally do in this regard,
It’s where we give our attention too.
It really is everything.
3
We don’t control much, and some would argue that we don’t control anything at all.
Whereas others say we make all the aspects of our lives what we are, (and what it is)
And that we are all powerful.
I disagree with both extremes in this case.
I think we don’t control much,
But it’s a contradiction because I think what is entirely in our control,
And the difference between damnation and salvation,
Is where we place our attention,
Where we put our awareness,
How we relate to presence and God.
If even that was to be out of our field of influence,
It would be hard to imagine the point of a human life at all.
It would be like watching a football game,
Between two teams you didn’t care about and which you had no money on.
Where are the stakes in it?
And life doesn’t feel like an endeavor void of course or consequence.
That said, it is a chaotic sprawl where much of what happens is plainly outside of our field of influence.
But I could be wrong, I suppose, about that.
Because in saying that I suddenly realize,
That the power we have over our attention does indeed affect the entirety of our life,
And of itself is infinitely far-reaching.
It’s easy to get into the weeds of the free will debate and how much control we have or not,
But I see life as endlessly interesting,
And to think of us as predestined puppets and nothing more,
Isn’t very interesting at all.
Likewise, to think of us as the alpha and omega of our own existence is also a bit of a bore.
Compared to,
A partnership with God,
Whereby our end,
And our only end,
And all that is within our control,
Is where we point our attention,
And then what is born out of our lives as a result of that,
Which is everything.
But the point is we aren’t here alone,
We are listening to a teaching,
We are opening ourselves to the eternal,
And we have the opportunity to do so,
Which is a gift beyond measure,
And the yearning that is always within all of our souls,
A calling if you will,
That the devil wants to make sure there is too much noise to ever hear.
4
Most don’t know the rules of the game they are in,
Or that there is a game at all.
But when you acknowledge the game (or the war) you are in,
And you simplify down to your attention,
And when you realize what the power of your attention is actually worth and the stakes therein,
It becomes much easier,
And you naturally become much more motivated,
To dedicate your life to that very attention,
To make sure you are Mary and not Martha in this parable.
So how do we do that?
1. The first step is forgiveness.
To avoid judgment and condemnation of anyone or anything.
And why?
Because all that does is egg on incessant thinking in the mind.
We have broken down that attention is everything.
So in that frame,
The chatter of the mind needs to be tamed.
Dramas, conflicts, lack of forgiveness,
And gossip games that ensue,
Is all just a bunch of noise and clutter that is here today and gone tomorrow.
None of it matters at all,
Though it will ape importance.
But it’s as relevant as a scrap you got into in the first grade.
In other words… not relevant at all.
How to forgive is another rabbit hole,
But Ho’oponopono is a good place to start,
Leading into a permanent state of I Am consciousness.
But come to think of it, this list will be really short because once you have the peace of mind (and the calming of the mental chatter)
That forgiveness affords,
I can only think of one more step.
2. Make a daily, then hourly, then every moment practice of presence/awareness, seeking the father, sitting at the feet, giving your undivided attention to God in the here and the now.
I realize that if your current state is a mental rollercoaster of drama and conflict, sprinkled with constant digital scrolling and cheap dopamine-inducing addictive behavior,
That the idea of sitting in silence for five minutes, much less hours on end, could sound like the stuff of nightmares.
But this is where we do ourselves favors by considering this again,
“Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching.”
The key point being “his teaching.”
I can assure you “his teaching”
Is more entertaining than every blockbuster ever made. (Even the new Top Gun.)
And “his teaching” makes all the dramas and social media scroll look absolutely ridiculous by comparison.
And “his teaching” is why I resonate with the Christian faith over Buddhist belief.
Because it’s all about “his teaching,”
And not just emptiness and overcoming desire,
Though that is certainly part of “his teaching” as well.
But “his teaching” contains within it all the love of the world,
Absolute fulfillment on every level,
Nothing else even comes close.
So the difficulty is only in crossing over,
Or being born again,
Or going from being Martha Martha
To Mary.
Martha Martha was concerned about Mary,
Not the other way around.
Mary was at peace basking in the glow of the eternal.
And so to go from being Martha Martha to Mary,
Is indeed challenging,
But the minute you are really into Mary’s realm here,
It becomes impossible to leave.
Once you are at his feet,
And tuned into his teaching,
Everything else is ridiculous by comparison.
