ATTENTION Part 2: Two Modes of Attention

PART 2: TWO MODES OF ATTENTION

It seems there’s an almost moment by moment contest on for our attention these days so I’ve been paying attention to attention. Pondering this in light of scriptural stories and teaching, it seems clear that we are formed by, conformed to, whatever or whoever has our attention. But how does that work and how can we effectively navigate the territory? In part one I touched on the idea that we pay a price to attend well and highlighted the need to triage, or discern, what deserves our attention, what we’re willing to pay that price for. Next up some thoughts to ponder about modes of attention, Jesus example and invitation to walk with him, in the context of our times.

Iain McGilchrist, a prominent British psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and author describes two quite different modes of attention. One is narrow, grasping, and instrumental, which isolates a thing in order to use it, master it, categorise it, tick it off. The other is broad, sustained, and relational. This lets a thing, or a person, be itself, unfolding in its own time, resisting our need to master it. Currently our world tends to value and train the first kind of attention and neglect the second. We have become extremely good at grasping and increasingly bad at beholding. The trouble is that only the second kind, with its patient, focussed, curious, unhurried attention leads to real engagement, with our world, with beauty, another person, or with God.

It would be easy here to mistake attention for willpower. You know, grit your teeth, eliminate the distractions, focus harder. But think of paying attention more like willingness to set aside our pressing agenda, slow down, and turning away from ‘everything’ to turn towards someone or something to pay attention. To suspend our agenda for a bit, pause the information loop, so that our mind becomes more available to receive. You see, attention is not so much an achievement of concentration, but more a laying down of our control. The compulsion to already know, to already have decided, to hurry on, and to use what we’ve learned for our own agenda. Rather, the cost that genuine attention requires, is a kind of humility to be present with openness, receptivity and awareness. Where agenda and control are set aside, usefulness and productivity are paused, in order to be properly present and attentive.

Sometimes it can take a whole lot of steps on a beach walk till I can tune out all the ‘noise’ of life and actually ‘be there’. Till I can tune into the sounds of crunching shells under foot, the wind in the sandhill grasses, a seagull’s shriek, waves swishing up the beach or, some days, thumping on the shore. Only then does my breathing slow and deepen, my steps can become rhythmic and steady, and the tension melt away. It’s then that I might notice a rainbow in the bubbles of the shoreline foam, a shell that reminds me of childhood beach days, and perhaps even a light but familiar impression of Jesus, walking, and sometimes talking with me too. The same unhurried attention that the beach invites is also asked by a piece of music really tuned into, or a painting looked at long enough for it to impact me.

We are changed by what holds our attention.

Psychology and neurology now confirm something the church has always known by experience: attention doesn't just precede change, it actually causes it. Early research into brain plasticity found that simply being exposed to a stimulus, such as sound, sensation, or information, produced almost no lasting change in the brain. But the same stimulus, attended to with focus, reshaped it measurably. Passive exposure teaches us almost nothing. But attended engagement rewires us, changes us. 

Imagine two people walking a distance side by side. With enough time and attention, almost automatically, they fall into step, same pace, same posture, unconsciously mirroring one another. Psychologists have found that the more closely we attend to someone, the more our bodies synchronise with theirs, and that deepens trust, empathy, and understanding between us. More than that, attention doesn't just observe the other. It begins to conform us to them.

We become what we behold. Eventually, enough of that conforming, over enough time, then something else begins to happen - integration. That’s when what we have attended to, is eventually applied, becoming part of us, being lived out and even producing fruit. I wonder if this fits with what the Bible calls wisdom? Not just information, or knowledge obtained, but a way of living learned the way an apprentice learns a trade, imitating their role model day after day.

What we attend to, we become.

Attention transforms us. But it happens in the way water shapes stone, gradually, over time. Attention doesn't discriminate, but forms us toward whatever we give it to. It doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, wise or foolish, life-giving or not. This is how we come to know and love God, but it’s also how we come to be shaped by whatever is given our regular attention.

Jesus invited his disciples to walk with Him, work with Him, fall into step, and pay attention to how he lived. The rabbis called this kind of discipleship, being covered in the dust of your rabbis feet, walking so closely to your rabbi that you were always covered in the dust of the road that his feet kicked up. And this is what prayer, worship, giving, serving - the regular patterns of the Christian way - are all about. They are practices that can help us habitually choose attending to God as our primary life-shaping influence. They are practical ways of keeping company with him daily so that, over time, his ways become our ways and we become more like him.

In a hyper-stimulated, hyper-aroused, hyper-active world, this kind of slow, patient, selective, personal attention is not the norm. But it seems to be what we desperately need. I’m so glad Jesus is not like a distant social media ‘influencer’ gathering likes, making money, and building a following through public performance. He doesn’t relate to us via an algorithm or a crafted persona, but draws near in spirit and in truth, personally present, and intimately close with us.

Pause and Ponder:

How do you make it a daily practice of walking with and keeping in step with Jesus?

Might you be due for a refresh and reset, to quite literally take a good walk to tune out the ‘noise’ and tune into the Spirit?

How about making a regular diary booking to get out in nature, slow down to walking pace, and reset the focus and rhythm of your life to become more attentive to God?