Christ in Ten Thousand Places: Cultivating the Art of Attention

It is 5:45 AM on the feast of Epiphany. I am sitting in the darkness of the Redwoods Monastery chapel awaiting the dawn. It is silent, except for the occasional crackling of a small flame burning before the altar. There are others here with me: the nuns who founded and sustain this small Trappistine community, a handful of guests, two friends who have accompanied me to this remote place. All of us keeping vigil, watching, waiting for the dawning of the light that has come into the world. All of us struggling against our own deeply ingrained habits of inattention. Which is why we are here, I think. It is certainly why I am here. To learn how to pay attention, how to give myself, heart and soul, to the dawning of God's presence within me, around me.