Theological Journal – January 31, Attention (5)

We end the month with a brief final reflection of paying attention to God.

Paying attention to God in the immanent frame of the time we live in requires two things:

-intention, and

-repetition

Intention: paying attention to God won’t just happen because we believe in God. It requires a commitment to live attentively and practices that foster and support that intention. Such intention necessitates a break with or change in our usual patterns of living. Life in the immanent frame will shape us into inattentive and distracted people, people who can’t or won’t see the gorilla in the crowd of people. It’s got to become more than simply a good idea for it to happen. The break with our normal to create space and time for attending to God is essential.


Repetition: repetition of the practices that foster attention to God is equally necessary. The haphazard or occasional will not shape a life attentive to God. Only a commitment to be attentive to God will build the habits that will shape our lives in attention to him. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” This saying, often attributed to Aristotle, is true. Whatever practices that work to rivet your attention to God, do them over and over again, in season and out of season, whether you feel like it or not, whether you think it makes any difference or not. As Nike says, “Just do it!” Repetition builds spiritual muscle memory the way an athlete’s muscles become habituated to responding in certain ways as they play their sport.


Attention, to summarize, requires intention and repetition to acquire the retention that enables one to see the gorilla in the crowd. God is always with us. The question is whether we are with God.