Recovering Our Attention
Today we welcome Chad Glazener to Ideos Writes as a guest contributor. Chad is a writer and pastor based in Portland, OR.
Dandelions, like all things in nature, are beautiful when you take the time to pay attention to them.
- Dmitry Posudin
Tucked away in the 18th chapter of Acts, there’s a small scene with the Apostle Paul that, frankly, could have been written about any of us. Settling into Corinth, Paul goes about his normal work. He steps into the synagogue to reason with his fellow Israelites. It’s a strategy he’s used many times, and he’s encountered hostility before. But on this day, it’s too much. His audience is combative--growling threats, unwilling to listen. And Paul cracks. “Fine!” he says. “You’re on your own; I’m done trying.”
These are words that have come out of my heart and mouth. In a divided culture, I, too, have given up and walked away. I’ve made the mistake of thinking that my opponents are incapable of clear thought. Like Paul, I’ve tried to distance myself from others. I’ve turned around, shaking the dust off my feet as I go.
In the story, God continues to work even as Paul gives up. Jesus tells Paul, quite plainly, that there are people in the city that are his and will become his. Paul will need to stay to discover what God is doing.
In this cultural moment we, like Paul, are more than willing to walk away from others. And when we do, we narrow our attention. When we are willing to write others off as irrational, we limit our concern to those whom we choose. But like Paul, we will need to recover our attention. Like Paul, we will need to become convinced of Jesus’ declaration. Like Paul, we will need to do the long, slow work of finding God hidden among the citizens of the city.
At Ideos, we believe that the way of empathy can begin a healing work among us. We believe that the way of empathy will not only help us move towards others, but help each of us see the fullness of God’s glory. And we teach that the first stepping stone on the way of empathy is to practice attentiveness.
But we have a problem. Our divided and distractible culture trains us to be inattentive. We spend our attention only in the places that suit us. We ingest more information than we’re capable of understanding. We scroll past one another on social media, reducing each other to virtual profiles. Our ability to be attentive to one another has been weakened, making it easier to walk away. Our common cultural frustration is, in part, the result of this practice. We have trained ourselves out of attention, even though our soul’s disposition is for communion with one another. We have a deep longing for connection that can only be satisfied through the practice of attention.
We have this deep longing because we are created in the image of an almighty God who is infinitely attentive. Before all things were brought into being, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are attentive to one another in mutual, self-giving, loving delight. And out of the excess of that love, God speaks all things into being, giving the gift of his attention to the creation. God makes us, and we are made to give and receive attention to one another. God gives the gift of his attentive gaze, naming what he has made as good. Likewise, we have been made to give the gift of our attention to one another, to see and name the good together.
In order to walk the path of empathy, we are going to need to begin with the practice of attentiveness. And even though we have been made to be attentive, we’ve trained ourselves out of it. We have been trained to curate our attention in places that we prefer, and to notice many things quickly.
We are good at observation, but unskilled at attention.
With observation, we preserve the potential for distance. We can keep ourselves away from what we observe, reducing ideas and people into controllable objects. But attentiveness will not permit distance. Attentiveness will always lead to the next step on the way of empathy: proximity. Attentiveness will always move us closer to what, or whom, we encounter because attentiveness is an act of self-giving love.
But how do we transform our habit of observation into the virtue of attentiveness? I’d like to offer three simple practices. These time-tested practices of the Christian tradition are exactly that: practices. They are ways to practice crawling and standing, before stepping. Take a few moments to read, and then to experiment with one or more of these. When you’re done, give the gift of attention to your own experience. How does your mind feel after this practice? How has your body responded? These reflections, too, are ways to recover attention. They remind us that attending to our own experience will also increase our capacity to attend to others.
Practice One: Silence
The first practice is often the hardest. But the wisdom of Christian spirituality suggests that the practice of silence and stillness are essential. In silence, we settle into the present moment, the place where attention is meant to be. In silence, we begin to see that God’s grace unfolds to us always and only in the present moment. Everything we need is right here. With that confidence, silence can make and maintain a space in our hearts to be open to the present, to one another. In silence, we learn to attend to the one before us, willing to hear what will be said. Silence is a powerful tool, one that can dismantle the fortress of words we build in our minds to keep others at a distance.
Practice Two: Question-Asking
Question-asking trains us to be attentive because it moves us into humility. To ask a question is to admit that you do not know the answer, but you are willing to search. Of course, it’s possible to ask questions in a self-protective way. But a true question, asked in humility, will always require attention. In the practice of silence, we can begin to hear what it is we still lack. And in the practice of asking questions, we render ourselves vulnerable before others. We begin to see others not as opponents but allies.
Practice Three: Naming the Delightful
With silence and question-asking, we train ourselves to slow down and attend to what is before us. But there is a third step we need to take. When we work to name what we see, we move from passive observation into active attentiveness. The act of naming requires sustained effort and creative power. But this work also deepens our ability to attend. It requires more of us: more precision, more sustained attention. But the practice of naming something as it is, not as we wish it to be, is always an act of attentive love.
In order to walk the path of empathy, we need to recover the ability to be attentive. We need to transform our powers of observation into the self-giving practice of attention. In imitation of God, we are created to attend to one another and the world around us. If we do, we will discover, right away, that this habit uncovers rich rewards. We will begin to wake up to the world around us, with its many glories and hidden treasures. We will notice that our hearts and minds are more patient than they used to be. And by cultivating our own attentiveness, we create a space where it’s possible for others to recover their own attention. In this proximity, we will reflect the God whose gaze is untiring, always self-giving.