AT⋅TEN⋅TIVE [uh-ten-tiv]–adjective
1. characterized by or giving attention; observant: an attentive audience.
I Want to be aware of all that is happening around me. Each moment we breath away another moment of infinite activity. I want to hear, smell, feel, see, taste, understand, and experience as much as I can. Like the immeasurable rate of raindrops that fall in a storm, life is filled with captivating truths at every splash. Some life occurrences are satisfying, others are painful. How intense would it be if we could become more attuned to the events going on in our world and in our consciousness? What if instead of hearing the collective white noise that comes with rain we could hear every single drop? I fear that I'm destined for the callousing that seems to come with age, the type of numbness that loses sensitivity and can't even recognize when drops fall on the thick hardened skin of weathering time.
This week has been a week of many exciting moments. Hitting a bar with my father, standing in front of my young friends and pour out my heart like water, a conversation with a wise mentor, finally seeing some one I love, time spent with the brethren laughing, and the screaming anticipation that comes with standing on the edge of so many things that are so much bigger than I, propels me into deep joy and a sense that I don't want to miss out on the touch of the divine in these days.
Monday I board a flight for Burma and I am genuinely filled with joy. I'm so lucky to live this life, to know these people, to have these talks, to see these things, and to be here now. We'll be carrying with us a very large sum of money that will be donated to some trustworthy people. As I withdrew the cash from my bank and watched the teller count it out on the table in front of me I wondered about the strangeness of this occurrence. No Doubt most of the money that we will be carrying was given away by amazing, generous people, many of whom I've never met, only to be carried half way around the world and given to an obscure Kachin man from Yangoon, Burma. Each dollar was earned and donated, and trusted to me a young-naive white kid to give away. What a bizarre concept. How privileged I am to get to play a role in this exchange. I wonder where the money came from. Americans? Church-goers? College kids? Was it a sacrifice? I wonder what it will be used for. Music equipment? Cyclone relief aid? Feeding orphans? I wonder. Its details like these that I want to be attentive to, the deep divinely connected nature of life. How everything is so improbable yet beautifully orchestrated. I don't want to miss a single drop.
