Gratitude and Paying Attention
Much of the spiritual life consists, fundamentally, in paying attention, and one of the great blessings of old age is that I’ve discovered I’ve done a lousy job of doing it. I’ve come to see that a great deal of my life consisted of my mind wandering off from when it should be focused on something. Sometimes this doesn’t matter, like when you’re raking leaves or doing the dishes. Other times it does, as when you’re in a classroom and the teacher is droning on about a subjec
