One of my favorite movies is Lady Bird (2017). One of my favorite scenes in Greta Gerwig’s coming-of-age film takes place in the office of Sister Sarah Joan (portrayed by Lois Smith), the principal at the Catholic high school that our angsty, creative, seventeen-year-old protagonist, Lady Bird (portrayed by Saoirse Ronan), attends. Sister Sarah Joan has just read Lady Bird’s college essay, and remarks, “it’s clear how much you love Sacramento.” Lady Bird is surprised — she wants nothing more than to get out of Sacramento after high school! She responds, “I guess I pay attention.” Sister Sarah Joan replies, “Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?”
This scene has stayed with me ever since I first saw the movie a few years ago, and has reframed how I think about prayer in my own life. Every day during the time I spent outside Guayaquil, Ecuador as a volunteer after college graduation, I took the bus from our little neighborhood out to the main street where my workplace was located. Without a phone to distract me, I took that commute time to look out the bus window and take in all that was happening in my neighborhood on each given morning. Kids walking to school, vendors putting out their fresh fruit or meat to sell on the side of the road, motorcycles whizzing by. I’d see my neighbors walking down the street and we’d wave to one another through the bus windows. I’d just pay attention, taking everything in. When my volunteer program director asked me several months into my year how my prayer life was going, the only way I could describe my daily routine was by quoting Sister Sarah Joan. I prayed in Ecuador by paying attention to my surroundings, thanking God for the opportunity to be there. I loved those I encountered in Ecuador by doing my best to pay close attention to them.
Hearing about Ignatius’ “cannonball moment” can lead us to think conversion happens all at once in a dramatic moment. However, my time in Ecuador allowed me to think about conversion and transformation differently. Only by paying attention can we truly reverence the moments that brought us to where we are today, and to where we are headed in the future. I think Ignatius would agree — the Examen prayer nudges us to do just this: pay attention and notice where we saw God in our day, what we are grateful for, and how we can do better tomorrow. My experience in Ecuador was one of conversion — but it didn’t happen in one “cannonball moment.” It happened in a series of moments of praying attention over time.
During this Ignatian Year and beyond, what can you pay attention to in your day-to-day that brings you to conversation? That draws you closer to God? That draws you into more loving, authentic relationship with self, others, and creation?