October 30, 2026

Begin With Attention

Attention is the beginning of devotion.

Barbara Brown Taylor wrote this after stepping away from twenty years as a parish priest, exhausted by the demands of ministry and searching for a faith that did not require a pulpit. In An Altar in the World, she argues that the sacred is not reserved for church but hides in ordinary acts like walking, working, and simply noticing what is in front of us. This line comes from her chapter on the practice of paying attention, where she treats careful looking as a spiritual discipline in its own right. It speaks to purpose today because it suggests meaning is not something we chase in big decisions but something we build through how closely we attend to small, present things.