One of the more entertaining ways of answering the question “Are we there yet?” is to look out the window or check the GPS. On airplanes, there’s something neat about seeing the fluffy cloud shapes outside the window or what countries you’re flying over on the GPS. In cars, it can be fascinating to appreciate what’s in the wide-open spaces between cities. On Highway 5 from LA to Napa, I like taking a moment to appreciate the things I only as they fly past my window on that trip. Obviously, it’s not sustainable to stare at every last field the entire drive, but after decades of traveling that highway, I actually have favorite parts that I look forward to seeing.
The journey we are on now also contains sights that can only be seen in transit. I love seeing the creativity and variety of all the homemade masks people are making. (I want one. I am so tired of my bandana, and I just haven’t made the time to crochet one yet.) I love seeing the creative ways that teachers and parents are finding to engage children. I love hearing the birds better because there are fewer man-made sounds getting in the way. I find the different ways stores and my blood bank implement social distancing really interesting. The art of observation is the art of noticing life as it happens. To keep us from getting overwhelmed, our minds tend to edit out a good deal of information as we go about our day. For example, very few of us could accurately describe everything in the room we’re sitting in if we had to shut our eyes. Reality is so complex that we don’t have the ability to retain everything that comes in through our senses. To retain it, we have to pay active attention to it, and that takes curiosity. One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was a curiosity about the world. Plop either of them anywhere, and they will notice stuff and wonder about it. Because of this, I rarely see them get really bored. Part of this is just an occupational hazard—they’re teachers like their fathers before them, who were also insatiably curious about the world—but it’s also a way of life. Someone who has actively cultivated curiosity can find one thing to observe and follow a train of questions to discover books worth of fascinating insights. The wondrous practical upshot of this is that it allows you to take in more entertainment value from your surroundings, a crucial skill if you are trapped inside due to social distancing. If you have not cultivated observation skills, a great place to start is by using the five senses in turn: What do you see? What do you hear? What do you taste, touch, or smell? For each of the senses, you can actually grow through exercise and education. When I learned how to draw from life, it opened up a whole new world for me. Even though I wasn’t very good, I was grateful to have a new way of looking at things. Listening to music actively is a lifelong skill. The ability to notice shades of flavor, texture, and smell comes through practice. Like distraction, observation can be a great way to blot out worry. When I’m really stressed, staring at my cat for a while actually helps me get my mind off of things. Unlike distraction, observation can also help you collect information that can help you find and solve real-world problems. In the course of staring at said cat last week, I finally noticed that he was underweight and adjusted his diet accordingly. My cat is happier now because I actually took the time to observe him properly. You will inevitably notice more problems than you can actually solve. In this room alone, I see many things that could use a good sorting and tidying, a clock that needs winding, some furniture that needs dusting, walls that need repainting, carpet that needs replacing, and pretty flowers I ought to photograph before they wither. Noticing this much input can be overwhelming, which is why it’s important to make peace with your limitations. Because reality is too big for any one human being to appreciate in its entirety in one lifetime, observing it can easily be a lifelong endeavor. The more you do it, the more you will appreciate how big it really is and how impossible it is to understand, let alone solve, all of it. It’s worth the effort, though, to try because that is how progress not only happens, but can be celebrated. I’m not just glad the sun finally came out; I’m also glad I noticed it. Light is too beautiful to take for granted. Take some time each day to observe your surroundings. Make note of what you see, hear, taste, touch, and feel. Ask questions about them that make you look closer. You might be amazed by what you discover.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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