This is Part 3 of the Savor Series. You can find the Introduction to the series HERE and Part 2, on The Spiritual Benefits of Being a Little Slow, HERE.
“A Crisis of Attentiveness”
They say the average adult attention span is down to 8.25 seconds. Less than the enviable 9 seconds of the goldfish. That may not be true, but it rings true to many of us.
The endless scroll.
Quick cuts and tight action sequences.
The ability to flick from texts, to emails, to the news app, to our health stats with a deft movement of our thumb.
We feel our focus slipping, our distractibility growing into a beast we can no longer keep tame.
The attention economy—that vast subset of apps and entertainment companies that make their money selling our eyeballs to advertisers and our habits to…everyone—has created a capitalist battle for our brains.
We are living in the midst of what Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, professor of business psychology at University College London, calls a “crisis of attentiveness.”
And this crisis of attentiveness has given rise to a tidal wave of self-help books, blogs, apps and devices meant to help us focus.
As I write this, I sit on a canary yellow, metal chair designed to keep me just uncomfortable enough to leave this bustling cafe before I finish this blog. There must be forty people packed in the 20x15 room, zooming and chatting and looking forlornly at their emails.
I have my Beats Buds in on noise cancellation mode, my phone and tablet on “Focus Mode” trying to keep my eyes bolted to my screen despite the laughter in the periphery of my vision.
I’ve been sitting here for almost an hour, fitfully trying to give my full attention to a blog about attentiveness.
By traditional measures, I don’t struggle with focus. I spent four years in grad school, pouring over the philosophies of Augustine and Schelling and the theologies of Lesslie Newbigin and John Calvin. I could sit cloistered in my carrel for eight hours at a time, absolutely absorbed in tomes and treatises.
But the truth is, I also struggle to pay attention. I’ll be driving with Steph down a street we’ve lived on for years and say, “Oh wow, when did that business open up?” She’ll look at me, slack-jawed, downright incredulous, “Are you serious? That has been here since we moved to this neighborhood!”
Lost in my thoughts on a recent trip from our house in Oakland to Tahoe, I may or may not have accidentally crossed the bridge into San Francisco. That little glitch turned our three hour drive into a three and a half hour journey. Thank God there was no traffic at 8pm.
So which is it? Am I focused or is it hard for me to pay attention?
The answer is…Yes.
The Difference between Focus and Attentiveness
I believe that attentiveness is crucial to the spiritual life. But focus and attentiveness, despite gracing each other’s thesaurus entries, aren’t synonyms.
Not being focused on someone while they are pouring out their soul is a failure of attention to be sure. But sometimes you can be so focused on the questions you want them to answer that you fail to pay attention to the cry of their heart.
Sometimes focus and attentiveness are allies. Sometimes they’re adversaries.
So what’s the difference?
Focus is fundamentally about my mental state. Attentiveness is about my relationship to the world and the people around me.
Focus is about narrowing my field of view. Attentiveness is about openness to all God has to offer in this moment.
In fact, the words “attention,” “attentiveness” and “attend” are inherently relational. They all derive from the same Latin root: attendere, which literally means “to stretch toward.”
Am I moving toward to the world around me? Toward the people around me? Or am I moving away from them?
Attentiveness stretches toward the fiery autumn leaf on the concrete. It stretches toward the puffy clouds in the sky and the grand opening of the mom-and-pop shop on the corner. It stretches toward a houseless neighbor shuffling by, and toward the longings of loved ones on the couch next to us.
Attentiveness is open to life.
Attentiveness is not just looking, but seeing.
Not just hearing, but listening.
Not just touching, but feeling.
But when you’re open to seeing, feeling and listening to everything, it’s so easy to get distracted!
Distractible Attentiveness
You might say that Jesus cut quite a distractible figure.
During one of his journeys, his boat landed in Galilee. And it looks like a series of distractions and missed opportunities.
Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a synagogue leader, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his only daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying.
Distraction #1: Jesus is about to give his next Ted Talk. A crowd of adoring onlookers are hanging on his words. But someone says, “My daughter’s dying,” and he’s off in a heartbeat.
As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
Distraction #2: A little girl is dying. She doesn’t have much time. I can imagine her desperate father, Jairus, just ahead of Jesus urging him to hurry before she succumbs to her illness. The disciples trying to clear a path in the crowd. Another desperate person touches him. He stops.
“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.
When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”
But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”
Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”
While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”
Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.” (Luke 8:40-50)
Was Jesus distractible or attentive?
Yes.
“The woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling at his feet.”
Jesus was constantly stretching himself toward the world around him. He moved at a pace where he could be attentive to Jairus, attentive to his own body, attentive to the woman, and, yes, eventually attentive to Jairus’ little girl, raising her from the dead.
Jesus is far from focused, but he is deeply attentive. That type of attentiveness is fueled by a faith that God will provide whatever is needed in due time.
How different from the frenetic fear that so often fuels our focus! (“I have to hit this deadline. Focus. Focus. Focus!”)
Jesus’ faith-filled attentiveness enabled him to see, to heal, and to love whoever God put in his path. It enabled him to give up the spotlight to heal a little girl. It enabled him to notice and name the faith of a desperate woman. His attentiveness was the foundation from which he blessed the world.
Attentiveness stretches us toward the world and the people around us. It enables us to bless others in a way we can’t when our eyes are focused on our personal prize.
But the blessings of attentiveness stretch in both directions.
The Blessings of Attentiveness
My cancer diagnosis in 2021 plunged me into a state of hyper-attentiveness I’d never before experienced.
The chill of the wind on my cheeks was delicious.
The buttery goodness of a steak was vibrant.
The eyes of my loved ones were blankets that wrapped my thin body in their warmth.
Life was teeming with life.
As we are attentive to the world God made, to the world he declared “very good,” to the people filled with his divine image, we cannot help but come away with a blessing ourselves.
As author Henri Nouwen said:
“This attentive presence can allow us to see how many blessings there are for us to receive: the blessings of the poor who stop us on the road, the blessings of the blossoming trees and fresh flowers that tell us about new life, the blessings of music, painting, sculpture, and architecture - all of that but most of all the blessings that come to us through words of gratitude, encouragement, affection, and love. These many blessings do not have to be invented. They are there, surrounding us on all sides.
But we have to be present to them and receive them.
They don't force themselves on us. They are gentle reminders of that beautiful, strong, but hidden, voice of the One who calls us by name and speaks good things about us.” — Life of the Beloved, 81
Maybe what we lose in focus, we can more than make up for in attentiveness, as long as our distractions are stretching us toward the people and creation that surround us rather than away from it.
The slower we move the more distractibly attentive we can be. The more attentive we become, the more blessings we will notice and be able to celebrate.
That celebration is exactly what we’ll be unpacking next week.
Quote from a Comment
A friend and reader, Johanna De Jonge, posted a comment about attentiveness on the Introduction to Savor Series that I just had to share with you. I hope it blesses you as it has me:
We must be present to perceive the good all around us. The way light falls upon the flower petal at golden hour. The spicy, sour, crunch of a duro just prepared with lemon and Valentina - pulled straight out of the bag. The subtle anguish in a community members face who is "just fine".
Thanks for sharing your wisdom with us, Johanna!
