March 7, 2024
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Simone Weil
On this twenty-second day of Lent, I sit with this quotation and reflect on why it spoke to me so much that I copied it down on a notecard. I mentioned who Simone Weil was in a previous blog. (https://spirit-reflections.org/2024/02/27/lenten-day-fourteen-simone-weil/) An intellect and mystic, her short life was spent working for social justice because she paid attention.
I am one of eight children, born somewhere in the middle of the pack. I suspect that is one reason this quotation snagged me. One of my triggers is feeling invisible, which I also suspect has to do with being born in the middle of the pack. Weil’s quotation makes me think of how precious the gift of attention truly is, the attention to others that Jesus the Christ demonstrated. He noticed the people that the general population did not. He paid attention to women and children, he saw and touched the untouchable, he included those who were ignored. It was through his ministry (and Weil’s) of generous attention that he demonstrated a love so different and all-encompassing that others either wanted to experience it, or to destroy it.
Consider when you feel most loved. Isn’t it when someone has set aside everything else to truly attend just to you? When someone notices you? Makes time and space for you? Asks about you? Listens to you? Responds to you? Those times become holy because they mirror the attention and love of Christ. They say, “YOU matter.”
How often are we having another conversation in our heads while supposedly listening to someone talk to us? How many times do we mentally tap our foot while someone else speaks? How often do we put a child or a loved one “on hold” because we have something we deem more important to do? How many times a day do we stop and attend to what God/Universe has set right before us? We certainly count on God paying attention to us, but how well are we generously sharing our time and attention with God?
Maybe it’s time to pay attention.
Blessings ~ Rosemary
Spirit Reflections 
Thank you for this reminder, Rosemary. And how often do we/I have a response already prepared to jump into a conversation! Active listening means, I believe, “listening” with the eyes and heart too. And paying attention engages our mind and our heart as well as our eyes. Thank you for attending to us, your readers.
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As usual, so well said. I appreciate you sayin that one of your triggers is feeling invisible. I am becoming more aware of that in myself, as well.
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