During these early days and first weeks of 2025, I have been thinking about the practice of attentiveness. The line by the poet, Mary Oliver, keeps grabbing my attention, “This is the first, wildest, and wisest thing I know, that the soul exists, and that it is built entirely out of attentiveness.” It is wild and wise to know that the soul exists and that we shape and form it out of our attentiveness.
Before inertia takes over, the beginning of a year marks a time of self-reflection, where we can take stock of how we pay attention. How we pay attention, and what we pay attention to, builds our souls! We can pay attention to the deepest joy and hardest pain of people’s lives. We can pay attention to the needs of others and the gift of community. Our attentiveness shapes who we are, and it is born out of our attentiveness to God.
We can begin with what God pays attention to as we pay attention to the life of Jesus. Through the words and actions of Jesus, we catch a glimpse of God’s attentiveness. God is attentive to the joys and pains of life. God pays attention to the hurting and the sick, the poor and the grieving.
We can also learn to pay attention through our family of faith. The rhythms of worship, the study of scripture, the service of mission, the care of each other, and the gathering around the table teach us to pay attention. They shape and form our souls collectively through paying attention to what matters the most!
As we continue in these early days and first weeks of the year, we can consider how we pay attention. We might participate in a new study or find ways to serve through the church, or we might approach our participation in worship anew. We might consider how it calls us to pay attention to God, or to the needs of others, in new ways! We can discover again how our attentiveness towards others, born out of our attentiveness to God, can renew our souls and form our lives.
-Tripp