“they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding.”
Mark 4:12

“The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.”
Warren Buffet

According to a survey by Microsoft, the average human attention span in the year 2000 was 12 seconds.

Today, that has shrunk to 8 seconds.

8 Seconds. Let that sink in. Our experience of reality is found in that tiny little window.

No wonder Instagram is so committed to Reels over still images. No wonder TikTok has the doom scroll feature set to keep you perpetually hooked in the 8 second zone.

This reduction in attention span has real consequences. 

Concentration and contemplation are becoming more and more elusive. Being present is becoming harder to sustain. Thinking deeply is all but gone. Remembering key conversations, important details, names, and faces is all becoming a challenge.

• It’s hard to have dinner and move from one conversation to another without feeling like I am missing out on something somewhere out there.

• It’s hard to watch kids’ games on the sideline without feeling like I could use the time more productively or sneak in a podcast.

• It’s hard to see the details of my wife’s life when I am so aware of the details of the major events of the world.

• It’s hard to sit through a worship service and open myself to the presence of God without thinking about the game coming up that afternoon or the work meeting on Monday. 

Is it even possible to fight back? Are we destined to live more superficial and distracted lives? Do we have to get rid of technology and move off grid?

THE POWER OF FOCAL PRACTICES

Awareness of the problem is one thing; resistance another. But reclaiming attention and living deeply is the real goal. Enter: the power of focal practices.  

Albert Borgman introduced the concept of focal practices in his book Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life. In it, he notes that the Latin word focus means hearth. The hearth was known as the center of the home. “For the Romans, the focus was holy, the place where the house gods resided. In ancient Greece, a baby was truly joined to the family and household when it was carried about the hearth and placed before it. The union of a Roman marriage was sanctified at the hearth. And at least in the early periods, the dead were buried by the hearth. The hearth sustained, ordered, and centered house and family.”

SUSTAINING, ORDERING, CENTERING.

The key to being present in the actual life God has given you is in reclaiming focus. It’s establishing a hearth of devotion at the center of your life that everything is drawn back to. Rather than living depleted, chaotic, and scattered lives, focal practices pull us back, help us re-center on what matters, and sustain our hearts.

The goal of focal practices is not primarily for the sake of rest or joy (though they often do this), but for the retraining and discipling of your attention. Focal practices teach you to observe what you have been blind to in your life. They help you see what you may have been missing due to distraction or the violent pace in which we live. 

THINGS THAT DEMAND YOUR PRESENCE

Focal practices are about active receptivity verses passive consumption. They are about directing awareness. 

An example of a focal practice is bird watching. Bird watching requires focus. You have to notice the difference in the species of bird, their feathers, their flight patterns, their song. You must learn imperceptible details often discerned at high speed. You also have to wait patiently for a bird to appear. You can’t summon them or control them. They arrive as a gift over which you have no control.

Fly fishing is another focal practice. The trout do not work for you. You cannot life hack the fish. You have to anticipate and receive. Reading the weather, the river, the kind of fly required, discerning their movement in the water, casting upstream in their path. All this demands your presence.

Though I have been bird watching in Central Park and fly fishing upstate, they aren’t focal practices I have worked into my life. But I have chosen to cultivate some that have helped me learn to pay attention in remarkable ways. These things may seem like stereotypical hobbies of a middle-aged man, but they are actually deeply considered activities that have given me back my failing sight.    

MOTORCYCLES
Riding along the Hudson River, heading upstate, or riding around the West Village early on a Sunday morning, I am fully aware and fully alive. Wind in my face, bike under my body, presence and perspective of my surroundings, speed and mortality up front. There is zero chance I will check my phone while riding my bike. 

In the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig writes,“In a car, you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle, the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.” 

JAZZ
There are few things as transcendent as a live jazz show in New York City. It is hard not to stand in awe of someone who has mastered an instrument and is bringing their genius to bear in front of you. I remember taking some church planting friends to see John Patitucci at the Jazz Standard one night. Brisket, Old Fashioned, and straight up jazz genius. There was not a phone in sight. Not a side conversation in the room. Just a sense of awe and the divine in our midst. I now listen to music completely differently. 

CIGARS
A man will open his heart over a cigar unlike any other setting. He will say things with a brother around a fire pit that he would never say in a coffee shop around mixed company. The weight in the hand, the smoke rising, the conversation forming. Depth beyond the trivial. A rare ritual of connection that bonds at a primal level. “Let’s grab a stogie” is often code for let me bare my soul.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography has retrained my focus more than any other practice. It's learning to see the individual in the masses, the details amidst the blur. My photography stylehas been deeply influenced by Edward Hopper, and it ensures I am never sick of New York and love its people in a profound way. I now see reality through a series of meaningful moments. Light, framing, gestures, details. Photography has slowed my pace and helped me see wabi-sabi like beauty in every area of my life.

POETRY

Reading poetry enables you to see moments of reality we normally walk past. Poetry is a secular form of scripture, but it can also be a portal to the divine. Poetry makes you pause and consider. It lets us hold transience long enough to derive meaning from the passing flow of life. It lets us gaze into the mundane until we can see the wonder happening all around us. Consider what is possible in a few short lines:

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost - 1874-1963

I try and write a short poem every night about the most painful or joyful moment of my day.

LIVING INTO FOCUS

I wish I could just “focus and pay attention,” but I can’t. I need help. Focal practices have helped me indirectly, like spiritual disciples do. They are a form of attentional resistance in a world of distraction. They slowly retrain our eyes, tune our ears, and adjust our pace. 

I am finding that now:

• I can meditate on a passage of scripture contentedly and not feel the need to rush through it.

• I can enjoy rich conversations without feeling like I need to “check in” with the rest of the world.

• I can discern the themes and seasons of my life in the midst of all the complexity.

• I am finding God in the ordinary moments, because that’s where he actually is.  

Greg Boyd wrote, “While the true God lives in the now, false gods always live in the past or future. Chasing them to find our worth and significance always takes us out of the present moment.” 

Jesus taught us to be present. The sermon on the mount is basically a masterclass on focal practices. Jesus could discern God’s presence in the poor, the outcast, Samaria, and even the cross.

I pray that we can learn that kind of discernment too. 

Why not try and experiment with a focal practice this week? See if you can learn to discern where the miracle that is your life has been overlooked.  

Thanks for reading.

Cheers.

Jon.