"ATTENTION IS THE BEGINNING OF DEVOTION"

I recently came upon an essay of Mary Oliver’s written near the end of her life. In it, she writes of her longing in the Spring to discover what she describes as “the desire to be lost again, as long ago” in childhood. “Now in the spring I kneel,” she writes, “I put my face into the packet of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness.” And then she goes on with this startling admission: “Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity.” Do you remember “losing yourself” in such childhood moments of delight?

She goes on to describe what it means to live with alertness to the world around us. Well, spring is far off at the moment, but in these weeks of deep winter we’re invited to savor other joys—like the crunch of fresh snow on a forest walk; a glimpse of the deeply slanting sunlight of a late afternoon, glazing the mottled bark of a grove of birch; greeting a male cardinal’s visit, his bright feathers blazing against the dark mantle of evergreen where he sits; or smelling the sweet smoke from neighbors’ woodstoves as evening settles, imagining them sitting quietly by the fire and enjoying the quiet at day’s end.

Each of these moments is one way we find ourselves connected to the world around us, discovering how we belong to its complex and mysterious beauty. What does this have to do with “eternity,” though, to return to Oliver’s startling admission? Everything, I’d say—joining in her wisdom; each moment in our lives connects with the vastness of space and the infinite flow of time. Here’s the clue: “Attention is the beginning of devotion,” she admits at the close of her essay, and then it all falls together: how we attend to the moments in our days reminds—that is, re-minds—us that we belong to everything, and that we are responsible to it all. Which is to say, we are “response-able,” able to respond to the place where we are. And how? By attending to the moments; by opening ourselves to notice, even cherish, some small, particular glimpse of things, each of which—with us—belongs to everything else. That is part of the tapestry of space and time we call “life.” Trusting in it, delighting in it, is another way to speak of faith.

So, what are you paying attention to these days? How are you opening your life to this intimate sense of devotion? There are opportunities enough to do this, right where you live: within your home, of course, or at your familiar doorstep--which, after all, is the threshold opening to the rest of this world. As we open our lives to this world, our world, and connect with each other in these times of Covid-burdened dis-connection, we can always discover something particular—and in that discovery, have the chance to “keep our attention” on eternity, in the here-and-now-ness of our lives.