WLSU: Multitasking Gratitude

Study after study has shown that human beings, no matter how brilliant, mature, engaged, and organized, are literally incapable of focusing on two things at once. We may be able to walk and chew bubble gum and respond to a text message all at the same time, but we are actually only focusing on one of those things at any given time. When you are talking to me and I am listening to you and I look down at my phone for a second to check something, I am not focused on you in that minute, no matter how well I’ve rehearsed nodding and smiling while I do it. I may even have gotten good at logging all the words you said while I was distracted so that when I return my focus to you, I can catch up and not ask you to repeat what you said. But I was not multitasking. I was pausing the task of listening for a moment while picking up the task of seeing who just texted me.

Feel free, by the way, to call me out if I ever do that to you. It’s a nasty habit and it says more about my attention span than it does about how interesting you are or what a genuine blessing it is that I get to spend time with you.

I am on record repeatedly as saying people – all of us – are both beautiful and ugly, petty and magnanimous, generous and miserly, brutal and gentle. I believe we contain all these things at once, and that trying to boil a person down to good or evil is inaccurate and unhelpful. Pigeonholing ourselves this way is likewise unhelpful: “The question am I a good person?” is not only unhelpful because there’s no perfect metric for deciding, it’s unhelpful because it takes the complexity of your life and flattens it. You are not all one thing. None of us are.

We are a lot of things. And at the same time, we can only focus on one thing.

I remember once I was talking to my godmother. Her name was Lynn, and she was an amazing gift of a human. A person only gets so many sources of unconditional love in their life, and Lynn was one of mine. Lynn was, among other things, a therapist and a life coach. In my early 20s she did some life coaching with me. It was the work we did together that ended up setting me on the road toward becoming a priest. I mention this to prospective godparents prior to every baptism just to really ratchet up the pressure.

So, Lynn and I were talking, and I was running myself down about something. Lynn stopped me and said, “Phil, you are viewing yourself with a judgmental eye. And when you do that, you are not viewing yourself with a compassionate eye. You can’t do both at the same time.” She was telling me I cannot multitask. I can be all the things, but not all at once. I can feel all the feelings but can only focus on one at a time. I can judge myself, and I can be compassionate with myself, but they will have to take turns, because they do not happen at the same time.

Yes, our lives are complicated. Yes, we are complicated. We contain multitudes. But at any given moment we have a choice about where we choose to place our focus. We have a choice: With which eye will I look at myself, at my life, at this situation, at the person in front of me?

Last Sunday my colleague Melanie Slane preached a sermon that really opened me up. She was talking about the rule of life she had set up for herself. She was talking about the daily work of learning how to live as if love is true, as if God is faithful. We cannot focus on everything all at once. And where we place our focus, the eyes we use to look at our lives, our love, our God – they affect every aspect of our lives.

I am thinking today about gratitude. I am thinking about what it means to be thankful. It is not possible to be thankful all the time. I can’t feel any one feeling all the time. Sometimes I think I’m supposed to always feel good, or happy, or confident – and that is an unreasonable expectation to place on myself. But I can seek to focus on gratitude for this life.

Quite often God is in my presence, showing me attention and care, sharing this life with me. But I get distracted. I say I’m multitasking, but really, I’m choosing to focus on something else. Probably my phone. I’m juggling a lot, and not all of it is good. Not all of it is good. I want to say that out loud, because toxic positivity and delusional gratitude are real: The fanatical push to make everything ok is tempting in religious circles. Not everything is ok. Nobody knows that better than God.

But where will I place my focus? With which eyes will I look at this moment?

Thanksgiving is underrated. It used to signal the beginning of the Holiday Season, but in the last few years, Halloween has grown in stature and taken that title. Now Thanksgiving is sandwiched between two more decidedly festive holidays, both of which have far better color schemes and decorations. But it is a whole day dedicated to focusing on gratitude. A day designed to help us look at our lives through compassionate, generous, kind, thankful eyes. We will be holding onto and focusing on a lot of things these next few days and weeks. May one of those things be gratitude.

Much love to you this season. I thank God for you.