Zoning Out

In Sacrament Meeting, one of the speakers shared an example of something that one child learned from his father. Coming out of a boring Sacrament Meeting, the father commented on how wonderful that Sacrament Meeting was. The child ask how that Sacrament Meeting could have been so wonderful when the talks were so boring, and the father said that when he was listening to a boring talk, he would simply close his eyes and, in his mind, give himself a talk on that topic.

I was given an opportunity to do that later today. In Elder's Quorum, our teacher shared an old General Conference talk. The whole talk. On video. That, in itself, wouldn't have been too bad. Lazy on the part of the instructor, but not terrible. But the speaker of the talk had a voice that, quite literally, put me to sleep. There is, according to the child's father, a correct way to zone out in church, but falling asleep isn't it.

What I should have done, rather than letting the droning voice dull my consciousness, was think about the topic of the lesson, Pray Always, and have a discussion with myself about it, perhaps starting the conversation by asking the "wh" questions. Why should we pray always? Where and how can we? Asking when we should pray always is silly, but asking what it means to pray always might have led to some interesting thoughts.

I zoned out in Elder's Quorum today, and not in the way that I should have. I'll try to do better next time.