Café on the River

Imagine forming a spirituality group
and gathering on the deck of the Café
with good food, wine, and a topic for conversation.

Here is a Subject For Your Table Discussion:

What Attracts Your Attention and Energy (Matthew 13:10-15)

We live in an age of information overload. One unfortunate side effect of this is that we need to be very selective in what we take notice of, out of the bombardment of messaging that constantly demands our attention. Jesus’s reproach in the Gospel of Matthew, could certainly apply to us in our times. Yet, Jesus also offers us healing. In today’s world it is genuinely necessary to switch off to a great deal that presents itself, in the media, on social media, and even in some personal interactions. Much that swirls around the channels of communication is at best irrelevant or negative, and at worst downright untrue or hate-filled. We need to filter it out, otherwise it can flood our consciousness and influence our choices and actions. As a result it may well be that our hearts have grown dull, our eyes unseeing and our ears deaf.

Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) teaches us a practical way to be able to connect our spiritual vision to our everyday problems. He presents us with a special tool kit which contains an invaluable aid to help us sharpen our perception, focus our inner vision, unblock our inner ears, and open our hearts to what really matters. This is the tool of spiritual discernment and is a key element of Ignatian spirituality. Using this tool takes practice. Ideally it takes daily practice, using the prayer of the review of the day to notice what we are really seeing, hearing and experiencing in our daily lives, and how we are responding.

The practice of discernment challenges us to see what is often concealed, and what is often unspoken, submerged in the tide of information that threatens to overwhelm us. The secret of tuning into this deeper listening and clear sight it to make a habit of coming to Stillness for a while each day. Asking for the grace of ears that truly listen, and the eyes that see the world through the lens of the heart.

The art of discernment is also very much about focus. What we focus on, feeding it by giving it our energy and attention, will grow. What we refuse to feed, by withdrawing our energy and attention from it, will shrink. A simple question therefore is: what aspects of our lives and our world do we want to grow and strengthen? We can help this to happen by feeding them with our focused attention. What aspects of ourselves in our world would we want to shrink? We help this to happen by starving them of our energy and attention. This is often expressed as giving oxygen to certain issues or people. When we give oxygen to what is life-giving, it grows and thrives. When we give oxygen to what is negative and destructive, it feeds the flames of division and hatred like a forest fire.

The grace of healing we ask of Jesus begins in our own hearts where the Kingdom of Heaven is a bit like a plant. If it is to grow into the better we long for, we need to feed it and be lovingly aware of what it needs. Or it is like a child. If she is to develop into her full potential, she needs us to feed her inner self by listening to what matters to her and nursing her with loving attention. We don’t feed our house plants with toxic waste, or our children with hateful gossip. We help them to grow by caring for them and becoming daily more tuned in to what they really need.

We grow in awareness of what attracts our attention and feeds our energy (positive or negative) when we allow for Stillness each day and listen well with the ‘ears of our heart.’ Spiritual guidance to aid your awareness and accompany you in discernment is strongly suggested.

God is longing to heal us of our inner blindness and deafness so that we can make choices that help us each to become more of what God created us to be, and in this way we might bombard our own little sphere of the world with the Truth that is love and peace.

Source: https://pray-as-you-go.org/p/s/3137. The Pray As You Go App is a production of Jesuit Media Initiatives providing daily prayer sessions to aid your prayer and guide you in Stillness.

For more suggested topics for table discussions, contact EngagingSpirituality@gmail.com.