People everywhere are head down, lost in the oblivion of infinite scroll. Just stop and let the moment breathe | Justine Toh

The pull of our feeds reduces our capacity to be present. Practising relaxed attentiveness – or prayer – can bring us back to what really matters

Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

The next time a waiter takes my order, I’ll ask for an “empty cup of attention”. OK, not really. As if that’s ever on the menu, especially in an attention economy that grows rich off keeping our eyes glued to our screens.

Still, that empty cup captures something I crave, both for my own presence of mind and in my relationships with others: attention. Money may make the world go round but my faith tradition teaches me that true riches are found in our capacity to attend to the world, and everyone and everything in it. You can’t put a price on that.

It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.

Justine Toh is senior fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity

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People everywhere are head down, lost in the oblivion of infinite scroll. Just stop and let the moment breathe | Justine Toh

Topics

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