Reverting to Paying Attention

"Early in the game the child is asked to shift from experiencing life to preparing for it."
(Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes, p. 54)

And when, I have begun to wonder, do we ever get the signal that it is time to experience life again? I remember living high school as the preparation for college. I remember living college as the preparation for "real life." I remember living seminary as the preparation for full-time ministry. And then I remember living each setting for ministry as preparation for the next one. And then I remember living my doctoral program as the preparation for still more significant ministry.

What I don't remember is living -- or even knowing enough to seek permission from anyone, or even the depths of myself -- any of those moments for what they were.

And so it was strangely odd -- and even more strangely satisfying -- a year or so ago to come to the conclusion that I wasn't preparing for anything any longer. At first I wondered if that made me dead. Then I wondered if that made me lazy. But then I realized it simply made me...

...alive.

It isn't to say that I'm not still hungry to learn and grow and stretch and dig. It isn't to say I've turned my back to the world. Quite the contrary. It is, rather, to say that I have turned full frontally to face the faces, patiently hear the jaunty allegros as well as the lumbering minor keys, and inquisitively touch the rough, the prickly, the soft and the smooth that is the life surrounding me. And it is fascinating.

• I simply hadn't noticed before how the grass sloping alongside the overpass moves in the wind like ocean waves.
  
• I hadn't noticed how deafening the air conditioner compressor can sound as it cycles on and off.
  
• I hadn't noticed the difference between arrogance and fear in the sullen shades of a teenager's facial expression.
• I hadn't noticed how many different colors are expressed in a sunset -- and how different they are from night to night.
• I hadn't noticed that a dog, fully relaxed and massaged in just the right place around his neck, purrs and groans in satisfaction.
  
• And I hadn't noticed how good it feels to notice.

I've been too busy all these years...

...getting ready.

Some now-forgotten voice once observed to me a truth that I have taken too long to remember:
that life is not a dress-rehearsal.

Perhaps it is never too late to shift back, from preparing, to experiencing.

That said, I need to stop. The sun is setting, and I have colors to count.