Reflection #108 (22nd June 2025 at Essex Church / Kensington Unitarians)
Last Sunday, after the service, a few of us were sitting in the back garden, and we got to talking about butterflies. I love wildlife of all varieties, and am always on the lookout for anything at all unusual, so I mentioned that I’d seen a tortoiseshell butterfly that week, not one I see very often. This was met with slightly blank and bemused faces and even a little shrug. I was reminded that not everybody is into the same stuff as I am; we can’t all tell our tortoiseshells from our painted ladies. And that’s OK! It’s not to puff myself up about my butterfly identification skills (which, in truth, are not that advanced) or to do anyone else down for not being interested in insect spotting. But as we move through the world we’re not all attuned to the same things – I’ve been looking out for butterflies (and birds) for years so I notice them – they take up more space in my mind and my life. And so every time I leave the house there’s a happy chance I will meet a creature that I ‘know’.
The conversation made me think of Mary Oliver’s poem, ‘The Summer Day’, in which she has a close encounter with a grasshopper rather than a butterfly. She pays attention – close attention – to this fellow living creature as it leaps into her life, stops for a moment to eat and to wash, then bounds away again. And she reflects: ‘I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed…’
This really speaks to me of the invitation that high summer makes to us – to give up on being busy for a while, to notice and appreciate what’s good, take time to connect with the natural world, its rhythms and cycles – to pay attention, using all our senses, and fully enter the flow of life. Often the last line of the poem is quoted out of context (I fear I’ve done it myself): ‘Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’ Sometimes this can be presented as if it’s a telling off – encouraging us to pull our socks up, get on with being productive, make something of our life – when in context the message seems to be the polar opposite, encouraging us to be ‘idle and blessed’, to sink deeply into the present moment, rather than fretting and fussing about the past or the future.
I came across another piece of writing by Mary Oliver – this comes from the commentary in a book of photographs taken by Oliver’s long-term partner, Molly Malone Cook, who she refers to simply as ‘M’ – these words add another dimension to this practice of ‘paying attention’ – it begins in her usual realm of the natural world but then expands beyond that. Mary Oliver writes:
‘It has frequently been remarked, about my own writings,
that I emphasize the notion of attention.
This began simply enough: to see that the way
the flicker flies is greatly different from the way
the swallow plays in the golden air of summer.
It was my pleasure to notice such things,
it was a good first step. But later, watching M.
when she was taking photographs,
and watching her in the darkroom,
and no less watching the intensity and openness with which
she dealt with friends, and strangers too,
taught me what real attention is about.
Attention without feeling, I began to learn, is only a report.
An openness — an empathy — was necessary
if the attention was to matter.
I was in my late twenties and early thirties, and well filled
with a sense of my own thoughts, my own presence.
I was eager to address the world of words —
to address the world with words.
Then M. instilled in me this deeper level
of looking and working, of seeing through
the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles.’
Words by Mary Oliver. I love that notion – a mystical way of thinking – that ‘paying attention’ is a ‘deeper level of looking… of seeing through the heavenly visibles to the heavenly invisibles’. When she pays attention to that grasshopper, attention with feeling, she encounters it at a soul level. We might even conceive of it as recognising the grasshopper as a fragment of God.
This week – forgive me for returning to butterflies again – I had a little magic moment of my own. I have been keeping up with my daily walks round the Mudchute, my local city farm, which is like a lovely little pocket of countryside dropped into East London, in the shadow of Canary Wharf and all its skyscrapers. Providing that the weather, the to-do list, and my fitness levels allow, I like to do more-or-less the same walk each day, get my 7000 steps in, and look in on the llamas, goats, sheep, and pigs. My route takes me through different micro-habitats and I have come to know what butterflies are likely to show up where – so many Speckled Wood and Small Whites along the shady woodland trails – earlier in the season the sulphur-yellow Brimstones – or my favourite, the Comma, with its bold orange colour, and the raggedy edges to its wings. And plenty more besides (I’ve seen eleven different species there so far this year which is not bad for London). It feels good to be familiar with the different species – their colour, size, shape, and habits – and to be able to recognise them at a glance and greet them like old friends. Some people seem to think this desire to recognise and name creatures is just a bit nerdy, but to me it’s a very particular form of paying attention, of noticing, one that brings me into deeper relationship with the natural world, even with the particular individual creatures (the ‘heavenly visibles’) that I encounter.
So one day this week I was on my usual route, which at one point opens out onto a bit of grassland, and I had to wiggle round a group of schoolchildren on a field trip, when I noticed a tiny, skittish, orange butterfly. And I knew it was of a sort I’d never seen there before. Then, once I’d got my eye in, I saw another. And another. There were dozens! The grass was absolutely alive with them. I couldn’t get a photograph as they didn’t stop moving but I knew what they were: ‘Small Skippers’. Now, though I say I’ve never seen them there before, I’m sure they’ve been there for a while. There were loads of them and the habitat was just right. But this was the first time when I was there, during their flying season, at the right time of day, in the perfect weather conditions, knowing just enough about butterflies to recognise I was seeing something unusual. And I was paying attention.
I went back the next day, excited to see them again. The weather was just the same, as far as I could tell, and I went back to the very same spot. And there was not a single one to be seen. It was like one of those fairytales – I’d visited an enchanted land that only existed for a fleeting time – so when I tried to return to it I couldn’t find my way back. It was utterly of-the-moment. I don’t think I hallucinated them! I don’t think it was all just a dream either. I think they were really there. And if my attention had been elsewhere that day I would have missed them entirely.
So, this summer, I simply want to encourage us all to pay attention – using all our senses – whatever sensory apparatus is available to us – sight and sound – touch, taste and smell. And perhaps we can make some more active and conscious choices about what we’re going to pay attention to. It’s hard to maintain broad-spectrum attention across everything – and we know we’re in an attention economy – algorithms everywhere are trying to grab our focus and keep us hooked. Maybe we are too caught up in news cycles, or in doomscrolling, transfixed by all the unfolding catastrophes. Or perhaps we are trapped in obsessive rumination about our personal life and inner struggles. There is another way. This summer, let’s make different choices, put our attention elsewhere, and strike a better balance. Maybe pick one thing that you’re going to be especially attentive to in the weeks to come – it doesn’t have to be butterflies! (but they’re not a bad place to start) – we can be more present and alive to ourselves, to others, to the wider community, and the natural world. In that spirit I’m going to close with a reading: ‘We Are Called to Pay Attention’ by Amanda Udis-Kessler.
This morning and all mornings, we are called to pay attention.
We are called to pay attention to our individual lives, to our delights and pains.
We are called to understand and cherish ourselves,
to take good care of ourselves,
to know ourselves as loving and worthy of love.
In paying attention to our lives, we give thanks for all that is good in them
and work to make the best decisions we can to help us live fully and joyfully.
Today and all days, we are called to pay attention.
We are called to pay attention to the people in our lives,
to celebrate their joys with them and to tend to them in their struggles.
We are called to bring our compassion, kindness, and patience to our relationships
even as we are grateful for the compassion, kindness and patience others show to us.
In paying attention to the people in our lives, we give thanks for their presence
and work to support them to the best of our abilities.
Throughout our lives, we are called to pay attention.
We are called to pay attention to the society in which we live.
We are called to understand the ways in which the lives of people we don’t know,
and never will know, are made harder by political and economic policies
that value some kinds of people over other kinds of people.
In paying attention to our society, we give thanks for the many people
who are working for justice for everyone, and we join in working with them
so that all people are treated with the dignity and worth they possess.
In all that we do, we are called to pay attention.
We are called to pay attention to the natural world around us.
We are called to understand how our decisions help the natural world to flourish or cause it harm.
In paying attention to the natural world, we give thanks for the ways
it sustains and enriches our lives, and we commit to living sustainably
so that all beings have the chance to live and so that
many generations after our own can celebrate the planet and its gifts.
Love, compassion, gratitude, and the demands of justice call us to pay attention.
As we pay attention, we bless ourselves, each other, our society, and the world.
May it be so, for the greater good of all. Amen.
Reflection by Jane Blackall