November 19thPaying Attention
To my dear TFMC family,
A few weeks ago I participated in an MCEC Pastors Retreat. As it is, when pastors get together we drink plenty of coffee and we talk. A lot. The largest portion of our time was talking about what it means to be an “everyday mystic.” Now, to be clear, being an every day mystic doesn't mean becoming an ascetic and hiding oneself away, being solely devoted to God, instead, as I’ve come to read, is about noticing; it’s about paying attention.
Paying attention is certainly a challenge, given how many things are vying for our attention these days. I’m reminded of a scene from the recent film Ready Player One, where the prime antagonist, a CEO of an aggressive tech firm, is promoting their newest update to a user interface and proudly proclaims, that “we estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures.” Demonstrating just how much of our attention is for sale.
And this isn’t a future warning, it’s commentary on what’s happening today. Our attention is for sale. It’s said, if you’re not paying for something, you are the product, and for many digital devices, our attention is the good that’s being sold, our time and our attention.
So what might it mean for us to pay attention to where we are paying attention?
Troy Watson, in a Canadian Mennonite article a few months ago, tried a little experiment on himself. You can read more here. In a nutshell, he wanted to see how he, his mood, his spirit was shaped by what he paid attention to. So for the first week he looked at progressive, liberal, media and social media. The second week he looked at conservative media and social media, the third week, he looked at inspirational media, and the fourth week he looked at no media, he instead attended to his spirit, reading the Bible, prayer etc.
At the end of each week he journaled and what he learned was this. He felt the same feelings of being overwhelmed, despair, discouragement regardless of whether he consumed progressive or conservative media. After one week of digesting inspirational media, he found himself highly self centered, and after the fourth week, with his attention on God and his Spirit, he found himself settled and at peace. He found himself feeling loved and sharing that, and feeling that life had meaning and purpose.
My take away from this is that where you place your attention matters. It shapes what you notice, it shapes how you feel, it shapes how you perceive the world and others around you. And I think we can make direct connections to our faith life. How are we attentive to God in our lives? How are we attentive to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives?
I think shifting our attention, we might notice that God is doing a whole lot more around us than we might otherwise expect. We might notice the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom, light shining into the cracks of darkness that surround us; we might notice that, yes, just because God is quiet God might be up to something, we might even notice that God is present here and now. But, I believe our starting point must be a shift in our attention, a resistance to the many other things that call for us to be distracted. And that, dear friends, is the beginning of everyday mysticism.
Yours,
Craig Janzen Neufeld, Pastor