by the Very Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson
“Pay attention!”
I have lost count of how many times I’ve heard that admonishment in my life. Those who know me well know that I am prone to letting my attention drift. I easily get distracted; I can get so swept up in an activity that I could miss the world rolling past my door on roller skates and in a clown suit.
So, I work on practices that help me focus: disciplines that draw my eyes, ears, and heart into a given moment, to the person in front of me. I have learned to hone my skills as a listener. I am finding the delight and wonder that comes when I give my whole and undivided attention.
The mystics would tell us that to give attention is a holy act. The great spiritual writers say that there is a holy regard in learning to listen to another, even to our own soul. One of my favorite spiritual writers, poet and theologian John O’Donohue, in a piece titled “For Longing” writes,
“may you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
that disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.”
Our world is so swamped in distractions—so impossibly loud with noise, interruptions, and busyness—that we can easily find ourselves drifting through life without pausing to pay attention to the subtleties of our own inner lives, let alone to the lives of those around us. Even when we catch ourselves doing this, we must also face that coming into a posture of attentiveness invites the possibility of being disturbed and unsettled, and be ready to truly hear what is being said once we focus on deeply listening.
In a way, that has been the course for all of us at St. John’s over the summer and fall as we’ve engaged in different listening processes:
- As they do every year, our vestry made calls to many of our members, asking how people were doing and inviting feedback about life at St. John’s.
- With the help of our consultants at Vandersall Collective, we engaged in a serious season of listening to our whole parish about our core values and priorities for the use of our resources in the year ahead.
- Our faith forums in September and October also involved a concerted program of listening to one another as we shared our fears and hopes in the face of the upcoming 2024 Presidential Election.
Each of these efforts required us to slow down and pay attention to both the inner voices of desire, longing, and need, as well as to the underlying concerns, hopes, and anxieties of our whole community, and indeed our partners beyond our doors!
From that listening now comes a chance for us to practice journeying more closely together, responding to the needs we’ve heard from each other and our neighbors. Our practical and tangible leadership choices—where we’ll spend our money, what projects we’ll undertake, what challenges we will tackle—are choices that now stem from that season of deep listening, so that we can truly take care of one another and the world we’ve been called to serve.
In his profound Book of Delights, Ross Gay describes such a posture as being an essential part of what it means to be human. “[I]n almost every instance of our lives, our social lives,” he says,
“we are, if we pay attention, in the midst of an almost constant, if subtle, caretaking. Holding open doors. Offering elbows at crosswalks. Letting someone else go first. Helping with the heavy bags. Reaching what’s too high, or what’s been dropped. Pulling someone back to their feet. Stopping at the car wreck, at the struck dog. The alternating merge, also known as the zipper. This caretaking is our default mode and it’s always a lie that convinces us to act or believe otherwise. Always.”
Caretaking is a beautiful frame for the work of being human. And as I’m sure you also know, caretaking can be an exhausting and demanding process! So as we listen for the needs of others, let us simultaneously listen to our own inner voice that calls out for care and attention as well.
Offering our deepest attention can be holy. I hope you will have the opportunity to pause and listen in the weeks ahead. Listen to the needs of those nearest you, to the communities to which you belong, to the world in which you live and move; and to the voice within you that longs to connect with others, make a difference, be known, and to know. The work that flows from such listening can be profound and holds the potential to change the world.
