Before Mass
On my way to church Saturday my attention was caught by a car parked in an odd spot - probably a hunter - but it made me realize there was a lake right there. I've driven that route for 20 years and never noticed that lake! Anybody else ever had that happen?
For example, did you ever notice on that stained glass window over there that Jesus is holding some sort of orb with a cross on it... I think I've seen it before, but never really paid any attention to it.
We don’t always notice stuff – because it’s not on our radar – it’s not important. We actually get into the habit of ignoring stuff. It’s normal for us humans to build habits –Think of a baby – walking for the first time, every ounce of concentration is directed at moving those feet and maintaining balance. Yet – as they get the hang of it – it becomes a habit and before you know it, they’re running out the door and don’t even THINK about walking.
As true as that is humanly, it’s particularly true in our spiritual lives. We come to Church and out of habit, we kinda get into a zone… I know I do. It’s like part of our brains turn off as soon as we sit in the pew.
But Jesus tells us to ‘Stay Awake’! He’s inviting us to wake up so we don’t miss out on what God is doing in this present moment.
Wake up right now – pay attention to what’s going on – to the words of the prayers, songs, readings – pay attention to who is around you. See if this changes your experience at Mass today. In fact, if this changes your experience at Mass, I’d love to hear about it.
Homily
How well do you pay attention?
There’s a famous experiment about attention which goes something like this: Someone is set down in front of a TV screen and a video is played showing people passing a ball around in a circle. The person is told to count the number of times the white team passes the ball – so they press start and begin counting. At the end of the video, the researcher comes back in and they announce that they counted 14 times – and by golly they’re right! But then the researcher asks – did you see the gorilla? Gorilla? What gorilla? They play back the video and sure enough, half-way through, this guy in a gorilla suit comes right into the middle of the screen, beats his chest, and runs off the other side. More than half of the people counting DIDN’T see the gorilla. You and I might think we’d see it – but maybe not.
There’s a phenomenon in us humans called selective attention – where we focus on one thing and can ignore everything else around us. We do that with our eyes, but also with our thinking. That’s actually a useful thing, because 99% of what our eyes see are irrelevant to us. We only really see what we focus our attention on. Unless something grabs our attention, or it’s pointed out to us – we don’t even notice. Kinda like the fact that there are 4 blades on the fans over your head. Chances are – you never noticed that useless detail...because it's a USELESS DETAIL. Selective attention helps us a lot!
However, this selective attention also can work against us. We can be so focused on what we think is important, that we miss the really important stuff. Many times we’re distracted by stuff going on – you know we’re all really busy – but many times we intentionally distract ourselves to KEEP from paying attention. In fact, we build habits of distracting ourselves… reading the bulletin during the homily, checking our phone constantly, allowing a computer or TV or video game to eat up hours of our time. It’s like we’re asleep.
The second reading tells us now is the hour to wake from our sleep. Jesus invites us in the Gospel to Stay Awake. What’s he mean?
Father Anthony DeMello, a Jesuit priest explains - Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep, so to speak. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they raise children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. Meaning - They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence.
You see - being alert, awake, and vigilant in the biblical sense is not a matter of living in fear that the world’s about to end – or that we’re about to die. Rather it is a matter of paying attention to God working in every moment of our lives. What’s that look like? We pay attention to our relationships – to the person right in front of you. We recognize Love at work in those relationships. We pray about how WE can be more loving and forgiving. We recognize the blessings in our lives and we’re thankful for them… and not just on Thanksgiving! When we wake up and recognize God at work, we can’t help being grateful, thanking, appreciating, affirming, forgiving, apologizing, and being more mindful of the joys of life.
What’s all this have to do with Advent? First - Advent means ‘arrival’ or ‘coming’. It’s a season where we’re REMINDED to be mindful – to pay attention – to wake up – because Jesus is actually arriving every moment of every day… we just don’t always see it. Can we take this command of Jesus to wake up seriously? Perhaps we can do a nightly examen where we mentally walk through everything that happened that day – good or bad – and thank God for it and look for where He was working in that event.
Secondly – to make this Advent meaningful – you and I can actively MAKE advent happen – in other words, through our actions, the Holy Spirit can arrive. Anytime we sow Love, Peace, Joy – we are inviting the Spirit into that moment.
To Wake up is to look for The kingdom of God, which is all around you and me. Seriously – it’s right here – right NOW! Do you see it? <softly> Do you hear it? If we want to encounter God, we don’t encounter Him in the past – we don’t encounter Him in the future. We can only encounter God is the present moment. Wake up and seek Him and we WILL find Him already at work.
I attended a workshop last week where we were talking about listening to the HS. Just like I’ve been talking about here, The Spirit is constantly trying to <softly> speak to us and through us… but we’re usually not paying attention. We did this little exercise where several of us stood in the front of the room facing the wall – then people would stand behind us where we couldn’t even see them and we were supposed to ask the HS for a word about them. I was facing a crucifix – it had been there all along – but suddenly my eyes were drawn to the left shoulder – there was a visible crack where the arm attached to the body. I almost ignored it – it seemed like an insignificant detail - but I felt like THAT was what the Holy Spirit was pointing out to me – so I mentioned to the guy behind me that there was something significant about that shoulder being disconnected from the body.
Immediately, he said – well, I’m having surgery this Friday and they’re going to disconnect my shoulder so they can reconstruct the joint! My jaw hit the floor. I almost didn’t even mention the crack in the shoulder because I didn’t see what it could possibly mean… but because I was intentionally paying attention to the HS, I took a risk and told him about it. What do you think, was that coincidence?
Another time I was driving to Jasper and had the thought that I should call someone – so I did – and just left a short voicemail explaining that the Spirit told me to call her and deliver a short message of encouragement. She was so appreciative – and the next day we sat down for two hours to talk, because she had some heavy stuff she really needed to get off her chest.
I’m convinced that the Spirit wants to do that every day – for every one of us – maybe every minute – but until we Wake Up, and stop distracting ourselves and intentionally start paying attention, ...
...we’ll miss the gorilla in the room.
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