Letting Go

Letting go of thoughts in prayer is a bit like dealing with deer flies while driving a hay tractor. Your focus on the tractor is to hay the field, but the deer flies are disturbing your concentration. You begin to focus on one fly or another and lose track of where the tractor is going. Then you get out bug spray and spray it all over you. Now the flies are still around you but they don't land or bother you so much. You can go back to what you set out to do: hay the field.

In the task of moving into deeper prayer, without words or thoughts to disturb you, focusing on your breath or a word such as "Jesus" now and again, acts like bug spray on a tractor. The breath or word keeps thoughts from becoming your focus. You are aware of thoughts as they buzz around you, but they do not disturb the purpose of your prayer, which is to consent to the Divine Presence within.