The Quality of Our Attention
The preparatory actions I take before worship on a Sunday morning fill me with a deep appreciation of my role as a priest.
Making time for centering prayer is easy on Sunday mornings. My dull yet delectably dependable breakfast of a boiled egg on toast is simple and satisfying. An hour before the first service I welcome being alone in the quiet and empty sanctuary. I set the ribbons in the altar book, I assess the quantity of bread and wine in the ambry, I read through the gospel one more time, and carefully center the gospel stand on the altar.
These familiar movements feel prayerful, not dutiful. They cultivate a moment-to-moment quality of awareness. It is a quality of attention that, I’m sorry to say, I do not carry into my daily routines throughout the week. The only time I really remember such intentionality of attention was when I was a new mom and relished the intimate actions of the morning with my infant daughter.
My preaching friend, I am prompted to ignore (gasp!) another foreboding gospel of ranting and raving this Sunday. And instead wonder aloud about the quality of attention we pay to the daily, routine actions in our lives. Thinking about this led me to a snippet of conversation between poet David Whyte and Krista Tippet, from an On Being interview that I have saved on my phone. Here he is reflecting on this attentive quality:
“I began to realize that, because I was in deeply attentive states, hour after hour watching animals and birds and landscapes … my identity depended not upon any beliefs I had, inherited beliefs or manufactured beliefs, but my identity actually depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself. [As] you deepen this intentionality and this attention, you started to broaden and deepen your own sense of presence. And I began to realize that the only place where things were actually real was at this frontier between what you think is you and what you think is not you; that whatever you desire of the world will not come to pass exactly as you will like it.”
In this season of preparing and waiting, what is “actually real” for people? What does their quality of attention say about the identity they are cultivating? Where do we bring our sense of presence? What I appreciate about my worship preparations is that unlike so many other activities I prepare for, they are not driven by a desire to please. They simply encourage me. They get me in the moment. Like Brother Lawrence’s (1614-1691) well-known commendation that when we do the dishes, we just do the dishes.
As Whyte says, “whatever you desire of the world will not come to pass exactly as you will like it.” Isn’t this what hope is? Leaving space for God to act in my future and the future of everyone else. Believing, or trusting, as Paul writes, that if I cultivate attention to what is real, I will make space for qualities that strengthen me in the present – encouragement, welcome, joy and peace.
When I prepare for worship, I hope that God’s presence will be made real. When I pray, I hope God will encourage me to be joy and peace. When I write a blog post that reminds me that the quality of our attention matters, I trust that God is welcoming me, again, to pay attention to this, today.
December is busy, like worship can be busy. We preachers are in a truly unique position to cultivate how we are heard. Perhaps this Sunday, it would be helpful to encourage our ability to “broaden and deepen our sense of presence” by describing the practices that connect you to what is real, maybe even inviting a prolonged pause or even, silence, into the center of your words. Standing still and grounded in that quiet, creating sanctuary space, and trusting most will be able to settle into the peace, and the security, the structure of a sermon provides.
We can embody the practice of making space for God, making space for hope. And isn’t making some room at the proverbial inn what the Advent season is preparing us for?
