It’s an average Sunday morning. I walk through the doors into the sanctuary of our church. The conversations across the room fill the air with a hum that drones above the canned music softly playing in the background. There are slides on the big screens up front announcing upcoming Bible studies, special events, and the last Sunday to donate canned goods for a local mission.

I am looking around the room for a place to sit.

Of late, I have been held captive on the front row because I am with Marion and I sit where she sits. Our friends, Leah and Patsy, sit on the front row. They save us a couple of seats right beside them, which is not hard to do because most normal people avoid the front row like the plague.

I have protested this arrangement for weeks now. Actually, I objected the very first time.

“Let’s go down and sit with Leah and Patsy,” Marion says to me.

I point out the obvious. “But they’re on the front row.”

“I know,” she says, “we’ll be able to see really good from there.”

Personally, I don’t think that being able to see what’s going on up front is the point. Church is more about hearing what’s going on. I can hear from any seat in the house. Now, at a baseball game I like to see what’s going on. Front row seats are a valued commodity at the ballpark. Not so much in church.

The truth is that from the front row I see TOO much.

Many moons ago I went to the theater to see the latest Hollywood version of Les Misérables. I got there late. The theater had filled up. The only seats left were on the front row. I’m thinking, “This won’t be too bad.”

I was wrong.

I have never seen an actor’s facial features in such gross detail in all my life. From the front row I could count Hugh Jackman’s nose hairs. Whenever he moved across the screen, I went cross-eyed trying to keep him in focus. I got nauseated every time he opened his mouth to sing, and thirty minutes into the movie I had to get up, walk out, sit on a bench out in the hallway, and put my head down between my knees.

I have not yet had this experience on the front row at church, but I know that it’s only a matter of time before I’ll have to make an awkward exit right in the middle of “How Great Thou Art.”

The problem with the front row is that I can see. In fact, I see everything on stage. Wrinkled pants. Twisted mic cords. Socks that don’t match. An untied shoelace. A blinking light. A candy wrapper under the chair in the far corner.

This is not good for my spiritual well-being. I am here on Sunday for a higher calling, yet in my weakness I find myself utterly lost in the mundane and trivial conundrum of worldly distractions.

This is what the front row does to a man.

When I first came to this church, we started sitting on the second row. I was uneasy with this choice, but I agreed to it because the front row at least offered a buffer between me and the stage. If I needed a lifesaver mint during the service, I could pull one out of my pocket, lean forward a few inches, and hide my fumbling with the wrapper from the eyes looking back from the platform.

On the front row, there is no hiding.

Then there’s the sound to deal with. It’s hard enough to dampen the unmistakable crinkle of a plastic wrapper during the service no matter where you sit. Lord help the fool who tries to open one during the prayer. I find it best to go ahead and open two or three of them during the hymn singing and place them quietly on the seat next to my leg.

On the front row, if I open one at the wrong time, I’m a dead man. The preacher can see me and hear me. It’s like trying to be quiet in a deer stand. A deer needs to engage two senses in order to know you’re there. If he can see you but can’t smell you or hear you, he’s not sure what to make of you. But if he sees you and hears you, he’s gone in a heartbeat.

This is why a church seat somewhere in the middle is better. Even if the preacher hears the crinkle of a candy wrapper, chances are he can’t see you and therefore can’t tell who the guilty party might be.

I also have a confession to make. I know it’s gonna be hard for you to believe this. And I’m utterly embarrassed to tell you. But I also know that I am not alone.

I nod off during the sermon. I can’t help myself.

This particular habit of mine is common to a lot of men my age. From the preacher’s perspective it looks like the men folk of the church are simply nodding in agreement to the sermon. Some appear to be lost in a deep state of prayer. Others are surely looking down at their Bible lying open in their laps. Heads are tipping up and down all over the sanctuary.

But the honest truth is that we are oxygen deprived. We don’t sleep soundly. We snore most of the night and therefore our brain cells are dull and our eyes are weak. Putting me in a chair and asking me to be still is like handing me a blanket on a comfy couch.

I feel bad enough about this without having to put it on display on the front row. Marion is politely and gently shoving her elbow into my ribs. The neighbor behind me reaches across my shoulder to offer me another peppermint. One of these days I’m gonna nod and lean too far to one side, then tip right out onto the floor.

When we arrived, walking across the parking lot this morning, I made my objection known once again.

“I’m not sitting on the front row this morning.”

“You don’t have to sit with me if you don’t want to.”

From the back of the sanctuary I can see Leah and Patsy waving to us from the front row. They are motioning us down, pointing to the seats they’ve got saved for us.

I ask Romona, who is a back row worshipper, “Can I sit with you and Joe?”

She smiles. “Sorry, all the good seats are taken.”

I’m walking down the aisle like a man being led to the electric chair. There are two seats in row 10. We walk right past them. I nudge Marion at row 5. There are at least six empty seats in the middle. We keep walking.

I just don’t get the appeal of the front row. It’s not like God gives extra points for front row sitters. But here we are again.

I take my seat and quietly begin to pray.

Please Lord. No nose hairs today.