Mumbled Prayers

You know that slightly disoriented feeling you get when you wake up from a mid-day nap? It's like you're seeing things through some sort of prism that scatters the light and distorts things just enough to make it hard to tell exactly what your looking at. Familiar things seem a little strange. You can get the same effect by repeating a very familiar word, like "mothball" a hundred times. . .eventually "mothball" loses its' familiarity and starts to sound weird. Well, every once in a while, this happens to me without the benefit of a nap. Perhaps medication would help, but somehow I don't think so. I've noticed it happens mostly when I'm not particularly engaged in some sort of activity. . .if I'm just in idle mode. Actually, even being distracted by various amusements also wards off this disorientation, or at least makes it less noticeable. Most recently it happened to me last Sunday afternoon. That's usually a quiet time for me. . .but this past Sunday the disorientation came with a certain vengeance. I have no idea why, but it was very disconcerting. I remember looking at the birds, trees, our cat, our apartment. . .and it all seemed so foreign and without meaning. I admit it scared me a little. . .like I was losing grip on something very fundamental. I found myself groping around inside for something to stop this from becoming a slide into despondency and eventually mumbled, "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." In the circles I travel in, this is the so-called "Jesus prayer", and part of its' usefulness is that it is short enough for a memory-challenged person like me to remember. It didn't "work" like some sort of magic. The disorientation and sudden loss of meaning didn't immediately abate. . .but it eventually did. Perhaps it would have anyway, but the prayer almost immediately made me feel "at home" in a very strange universe. I'm grateful someone taught me this prayer somewhere along the way. I'm grateful God is merciful because otherwise, the prayer would be useless.