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.
