In a world of constant alerts and endless scrolling, the ability to focus is becoming harder.
It’s no wonder, then, that ADHD — Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder — has entered public conversation in a new way. Diagnoses are rising, especially among adults who suddenly recognise in themselves the child who could never sit still, the student whose mind wandered, the worker who lives in a swirl of unfinished tasks.
For some, the label brings relief and understanding. For others, it can feel like one more verdict on a life that never quite fits.
Scientific explanations that link ADHD to dopamine levels, executive function, and brain chemistry are helpful. They reduce stigma and open paths to practical help.
Yet, behind the science lies a deeper question — not just about the brain, but about the kind of attention our culture values, and what sort it neglects.
Developments in the field of education have helped us rethink what attention means. Once defined by stillness and obedience, attention was something to be controlled: eyes forward, hands folded, mind on the task.
Modern pedagogies have widened that vision. Teachers now speak of engagement, curiosity, and embodied learning — of attention as something relational and diverse rather than uniform and rule-bound.
Mindfulness, contemplative practice, and the recognition of neurodiversity have further deepened this shift, suggesting that focus is not merely a mental skill but a way of being present to the world — one that invites us to notice, wonder, and care.
These educational insights echo something the spiritual traditions have long known — that attention is not only a cognitive skill but a spiritual posture.
The French thinker Simone Weil, reflecting on the practice of prayer, described attention as one of the highest forms of generosity: to attend to another person or to God is to offer oneself without grasping or control.
In that sense, attention is not simply the capacity to concentrate but a willingness to be fully present.
In the Gospels, it is noticeable how often Jesus allows himself to be interrupted. He’s on the way to heal one person when someone else touches his cloak. He’s teaching the crowds when children come running up, and the disciples try to shoo them away.
But Jesus stops, turns, attends. His attention is spacious, generous, open to surprise.
For those of us who live with — or alongside — ADHD, that is good news. It suggests that holiness may have less to do with perfect concentration and more to do with responsiveness to what’s before us, even in the chaos.
There is also a theological comfort in the idea of limitation. The Christian story is, at heart, about grace — about a love that does not depend on performance and perfection.
We are not machines driven by perfect focus. We are creatures — dependent and distracted, yet capable of wonder. When we lose track of time because we are captivated by beauty or curiosity, that too can be a means of grace.
Yet that distractedness can also be wearying. For many, living with ADHD means constant effort, frustration, and fatigue. Grace does not romanticise distraction; it meets us within it.
It is often said that prayer begins with learning how to be still. It is a form of attention, a turning of the mind and heart toward a God whose attention toward us never wavers.
The experience of ADHD reminds us that attention is fragile. Before it is a discipline to be cultivated, it is a grace to be received.
A friend once described their experience of living with ADHD as "trying to listen to a choir in my head where everyone is singing a different song." They expressed a longing for coherence amid competing voices.
In the Christian imagination, grace doesn’t silence those voices so much as tune them toward harmony. The challenge is not to mute the noise but to find, within it, a note of love that brings the whole into resonance.
It also invites us to see ADHD not just through the lens of disorder but through the lens of difference — a different rhythm of life, a different way of seeing, perhaps even a different form of longing.
It can remind faith communities to be gentler with those whose minds wander, and to resist the idol of efficiency that sometimes passes for virtue.
To be places of grace for people with ADHD and other neurodivergent conditions, faith communities must be spaces where difference is welcomed. Some pray best in silence; others find God in movement or creativity.
To honour neurodiversity is not only to celebrate difference but to accommodate and support those for whom distraction or impulsivity are daily burdens.
Neurodiversity is not a problem to fix but a facet of the divine image to honour — one that calls the whole community to patience, understanding, and mutual care.
■ Dr Graham Redding is Douglas Goodfellow lecturer in chaplaincy studies, University of Otago.
