Quotes about Attention

It wasn't that the Gospel proved useful for my many worries but that the Gospel proved the uselessness of my worries and so refocused my whole attention.

The great movement of the spiritual life is from a deaf, nonhearing life to a life of listening.

Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior.

I asked him how he had been able to take such a splendid picture. With a smile he said, "Well, I had only to be very patient and very attentive. It was only after a few hours of compliments that the lily was willing to let me take her picture.

When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs.

But in Solitude, we can pay attention to our inner self

It is not easy for us, busy people, to truly receive a blessing. Perhaps the fact that few people offer a real blessing is the sad result of the absence of people who are willing and able to receive such a blessing. It has become extremely difficult for us to stop, listen, pay attention, and receive gracefully what is offered to us.

When you heed only your lion, you will find yourself overextended and exhausted. When you take notice only of your lamb, you will easily become a victim of your need for other people's attention.

This kind of attention to the eternal in our every day does not strain our hearts. It does not major on brawny striving. It has more to do with attention to God than perfection, with a desire to see God even amid our great weakness.

Time becomes a means to an end, not moments in which to enjoy God or pay attention to others.

Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God.

Our children are our most important guests, who enter into our home, ask for careful attention, stay for a while and then leave to follow their own way. Children are strangers whom we have to get to know.