Single Focused Attention: Gateway to Peace
There is nothing like a knock down, drag out, heart halting moment to stoke our single focused attention. In fact, such stormy strikes of terror are precisely what many of us require to break us out of our comfortable ruts and stop us from hopelessly clinging to things that cannot last.
One hour into your cross country flight on the AirbusA380 you look out the window, notice the wing is on fire, and you almost choke on your heart pounding in your throat. Or, the phone rings and the sober voice of your physician asks, “Are you sitting down?” Immediately your stomach drops through the floor as if you are drowning. Or, you touch the brakes of your car on black ice and instantly you are carving pirouettes across the freeway, alternately heading into oncoming traffic then turning away as time and sensation cease, spilling you into utter silence.
Sooner or later most of us are seized in the swells of life’s wanton winds and realize, there is nothing to grab, nothing to hold onto, nothing we can do to effect our situation. Catapulted beyond thinking, we cry out, “O God, if you are there, tell me to come to you.” There we have it. The sweet spot hidden at the center of our personal melee. Forgetting everything impermanent, our single focused attention opens the ears of our heart to hear the unseen voice of God. “Take heart… do not be afraid.”
Is it not interesting? The wing of the plane is still aflame. Your physician’s message is still gripping your gut. Your car is still spinning across six lanes of freeway. All odds are stacked against us, and, God is right here, the utterly silent peace, whispering from a cloud at the center of our calamity. “Take heart… do not be afraid.”
How does this come about? A storm overcomes us. The camera in our head pans to wide-angle view and tamps motion down to slow. The voice of silence pervades and freezes our faculties. Only our single focused attention persists. Riveted to the present moment, we rendezvous in the cloud of unknowing because nothing remains between us and God. The experience is as fleeting as a chimera, enduring as a 4.4 billion year old zircon found in Australia’s Jack Hills. In an instant we know that we know that we know; although there is nothing to hold onto, nothing can be lost.
I suspect this is what happens when Peter and the other terrified disciples cry out from their wind battered boat in fear and “immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on water…” Things were going well until Peter got distracted and began to sink. (See full text below)
For as long as Peter was not caught up by the ever changing things of wind, boat and water, his single focused attention on Jesus enabled him to walk on water. But the moment the squalling winds captured his attention, Peter forgot his focus, lost his peace, became frightened and began to sink.
The whimsical wiles of impermanent things are always kicking up dirt, spitting out ice or setting storms upon us. The thing is, it is not the storms that capsize us. Danger only threatens when we scramble to cling to perishing things rather than turn our attention to the perpetual Presence of God with us. “O God, if you are there, tell me to come to you.”
In the temperamental toss and tumble of our lives, instead of pausing and listening for God, we are distracted by things we fear we are losing — our boats, our children, our health, our independence, life as we have known it. For as long as we hitch our lives and value to these impermanent things we will become afraid because, all passing things will perish. It is rather like building our house in a wash or flood plain, eventually we will lose all we have labored to construct and be forced to turn toward trustworthy ground.
There is nothing like a knock down, drag out, heart halting moment to stoke our single focused attention. In fact, such stormy strikes of terror are precisely what many of us require to break us out of our comfortable ruts and stop us from hopelessly clinging to things that cannot last. For many of us much of the time it takes nothing less than being knocked down and dragged out to summon our single focused attention. “O God, if you are there, tell me to come to you.”
Rather than view the fickle tides and tempests of time as things to be controlled or avoided, better we should welcome our storms as the narrow gates through which we may enter the incomprehensible cloud of unknowing, the living ground of perpetual peace, unperturbed by impermanent things in the presence of Divine Presence.
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Learn more about me at https://www.debraasis.org/ All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being. Debra Asis
Matthew 14:22–33 Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them. And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.”
Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?” When they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
