Attention is the Beginning of Devotion

Whenever possible, I love sinking into the wild stillness of the present moment…

But lately I'm finding that it takes more effort to make that happen. Maybe you've noticed this, too. It seems the roar of the world grows louder every day, with ceaseless waves of distractions crashing into my shores. From dawn to dusk, I feel the information superhighway wearing deep grooves in the sanctity of my mind. I find my attention fraying, my days swept up in the current of a thousand trivialities.

And yet, a single line from a Mary Oliver poem breaks through the noise like a light in the dark: “Attention is the beginning of devotion.” I can imagine Mary, her spirit wrapped in divine, unbroken moments of attention, attuned to the song of crickets, the call of birds, and the whispering wind.

If attention is the beginning of devotion, where do we begin in this age of distraction? How do we return to the sacred act of attending to the quiet voice of Holy Spirit and allowing it to draw us in to a devotional life?

Perhaps the answers lie not in resisting the noise, but in slipping quietly beneath it, finding again the holy silence where devotion blooms.