The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things [Hardcover]

Leighton Ford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2008

Your attention, please. That's what God wants, Leighton Ford discovered. It's the path to becoming like Christ. Distractions and fear and busyness were keeping Ford from seeing God's work in and around him. He was missing God. So he began a journey of longing and looking for God. And it started with paying attention. In these pages, he invites you to journey with him. Using the rich tradition of praying the hours, Ford will walk with you, helping you pay attention to God's work in you and around you throughout each day and in different seasons of your life. If you're busy, distracted, rushing through each day, you might be feeling disconnected from God, unable to see how he's working. You might be missing him. But the way toward him starts with a pause and a prayer--with intention and attention--and becomes a way of life, awake and alive to the peaceful, powerful presence of God.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ford would seem an unlikely candidate to write a gentle, moving introduction to traditional monastic spirituality. As Billy Graham's brother-in-law and frequent stand-in, Ford's evangelical bona fides are unquestionable. Yet he describes the details of life at Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery in South Carolina, with the eye of the avid amateur painter he also is. Reading this book you'll find yourself scribbling down prayers from obscure medieval figures like a certain St. Fursey. Ford is also appealing as he describes odd gestures he's willing to make in search of the God who's present in the everyday: hugging a tree, hugging himself in an airport with passersby all around, revealing his own struggles with his image and how to pursue God rather than his own self-aggrandizement. He does make a distinctly Protestant addition to the tradition of monastic spirituality, insisting that the most rigorous of spiritual practices are for all believers. The few missteps are slight: Ford's references to his heavy travel schedule and frequent vacations do threaten to make this feel like a spirituality for the upper-middle class only, and his readings of scripture tend to the emotive and literal. (May)
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Review

"This is a book of such quiet beauty and deep simplicity it is difficult to describe. I was both pierced and healed by longing in the reading of it. The word soul is thrown around far too easily these days, but this book will touch the soul if you let it." (John Ortberg, pastor, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, and author of The Life You've Always Wanted )

"Leighton Ford writes with insight, faith and balance. This book, like Jesus, transcends all denominational lines. Drawing on the wisdom of many traditions, The Attentive Life is a warm invitation to wake up, not just to the reality of God but to what is deepest inside of us. This is a gold mine of wisdom and balance, a challenging thought on every page. I heartily recommend it to readers of all faiths." (Ronald Rolheiser, author of The Holy Longing )

"Awakening is a central metaphor for the spiritual life. In a compelling voice that comes from years of spiritual journeying, Leighton Ford shows us how to wake up and pay attention to the presence of God--through the hours of our days and the seasons of our lives." (Ruth Haley Barton, president of the Transforming Center and author of Sacred Rhythms )

"My heart sings when I realize that Leighton Ford's intelligent experience continues to look with longing for more. His attention keeps getting arrested by words, ideas, images, details of the natural and supernatural landscapes. . . . This book is a primer in how to respond actively to Jesus' challenge: 'Behold! Look! Listen! Take notice! There is still so much for you to discover.'" (Luci Shaw, poet and author of Breath for the Bones and The Crime of Living Cautiously and writer-in-residence, Regent College )

"I thank God for The Attentive Life. It provides an antidote to the primary spiritual problem of our day: distraction. The Attentive Life is the mature reflections of one who has spent a lifetime walking in the way of Jesus." (Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline and Life with God )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 229 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830835164
• ISBN-13: 978-0830835164
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #197,271 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of grace and beauty, August 19, 2008

By 

G. W. Doyle (Charlottesville, Virginia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (Hardcover)

Leighton Ford's The Attentive Life is a work of grace and beauty, well worth multiple slow and attentive readings.

Coming from the mind and heart of a very wise man, this slender volume is redolent with truth and love. It's the kind of book that probably could only have been written by an older person, but that deserves careful consideration by people of all ages, especially young men!

Seventy-six-year-old Ford, a former world-trotting evangelist, recently a trainer and mentor of younger leaders, has stepped into the role of "artist of the soul and a friend on the journey." As an artist with words, he surely succeeds, with elegant, even poetic prose laced with pithy nuggets of his own and apt quotations from a wide array of skilled authors. Rarely has a Christian leader with such a well-earned reputation for character and spirituality revealed so much of his own weakness and shortcomings. One thinks of St. Augustine's Confessions.

As the back cover says, "Distractions and fear and busyness were keeping Leighton Ford from seeing God's work in an around him. So he began a journey of longing and looking for God. And it started with paying attention."

Under the rubric of "attention," Ford includes concepts like listening, alertness, and the contemplative life. Chapter One, "Paying Attention," would have been, as the saying goes, worth the price of the whole book, for it highlights how critical is attentiveness for finding "the way to clarity of heart," which is "the path to seeing God."

Seeing God, after all, is the proper goal - or end - of our existence, if we understand by "seeing" that culmination of all our longings and desires in the full and final, but never-ending, embrace of his love for which we were created.

The author wants to help us be "clear at the center" (his preferred rendering of "pure in heart") "and so with true attentiveness `to see God in all things, and all things in God.'" Such a quality mirrors the nature of God himself, who is a "Father who watches with careful attention." After all, God is love, and "love is focused attention."

By contrast, we learn how deadly distraction and inattention can be, not only in our relations with those around us, but in knowing either ourselves or God. "Perhaps inattentiveness is our greatest sin - not only against [God] but against ourselves."

How, then, do we overcome inattention? Ford follows the "hours" of the monastic rule to paint a portrait of a life which stops, looks, and listens seven times a day. Each of these "hours" is related to a time of day, a state of mind, and a phase in our journey through life, until death itself approaches.

I am hard pressed to describe either the loveliness of this book or the depth and relevance of its central message as the theme unfolds and develops with a remarkably organic flow. A banquet of gourmet delights, pleasing to the palate, delightful to the eyes, and nourishing to the soul. A diamond with dozens of facets, each reflecting and refracting light in dazzling variety. A tapestry of rich colors of every hue, complex but coherent. A bouquet of flowers. A symphony of ideas and images, with theme and variation, ending in a quiet but deeply moving climax.

But I cannot do justice to the variegated richness of Leighton Ford's style or the content of this highly-autobiographical guide to the attentive - and finally contented - life. You must read it for yourself. Soon. Repeatedly. Attentively.

G. Wright Doyle
August, 2008
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book worth sitting up and taking note!, July 14, 2008

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (Hardcover)

Leighton Ford will be a familiar name to those who remember the heyday of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. From 1955 to 1985, Ford served the organization in a number of capacities, including associate evangelist and vice president. He has spoken to millions of people in 37 countries on every continent of the world, is Honorary Life Chairman of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism, and has been singled out by TIME magazine as being "among the most influential preachers of an active gospel." Active indeed.

So when Leighton Ford writes a book around sitting still, it's worth sitting up and taking note.

Ford confesses that he wrote THE ATTENTIVE LIFE for himself as much as anyone, but he's also alert to the broader issues of perpetual hurry in modern life and the potential this has to wreak havoc on spiritual life. He writes, "Hurrying from one thing to the next we do not stop, look, and listen to God's voice right now. I wrote this for myself in part, because with a very busy mind I found myself not really listening to God, others or even my own heart. And one of the consistent themes of Scripture is God calling for attention. As Jesus said, 'Give your full attention to what God is doing right now.'"

To focus his attention, Ford has adopted the practice of observing the hours. Observing the hours is an ancient Christian ritual developed by St. Benedict wherein specific prayers are offered at specific times during the day, serving the purpose of keeping the devotee's mind focused on Christ through whatever the day brings. It's perhaps a testament to the truth in Ford's observation that modern life isn't conducive to reflection (and the risks of this) that almost every time you look up these days, another book is being published that "rediscovers" the quiet power of Benedictine spirituality, and specifically St. Benedict's practice of observing the hours. Many are finding this way of ordering one's life around God a welcome antidote for the pressures of the world, in which multitasking is the norm.

Ford's insights about stages of the day and stages of life are keen, and especially poignant given his already long and rich experience of both. He writes about joy and grief as one who has been doubled over by both. And still he is trying to pay attention. He writes, "The most vital way to measure our lives is not by chronological time --- chronos time, to use the Greek word --- but in terms of kairos, the word often used in the Bible to speak of those opportune times that become turning points. Kairos is the word Jesus often used when he said, 'My time is not yet,' or 'My time has come.' To be fully alive is to pay attention to kairos encounters. As Paul wisely counseled his readers, 'Be very careful, then, how you live --- not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil' (Eph. 5:15-16).

"I like to think of the attentive life also as the contemplative life, for contemplative literally mean 'putting together.' We connect the dots between the chronos and the kairos of our life, relate the hours that we measure by the clock to the hours and seasons of our souls."

While he does point to the hours frequently as a framework for thinking about paying attention to God, Ford is not so much concerned that you stick to a schedule. Instead, he hopes to stoke an awareness of God's presence that pervades all things at all times. To this end he offers examples of those who have inspired him with their ability to attend to the important things --- everyone from Simone Weil to C.S. Lewis to his dog prove that different personalities have different ways of engaging the presence of God and others, and that we too can learn to make this a part of our own daily (and seasonal) rhythm.

Ford is clearly thinking about using time well at this stage of his life, but his observations are perhaps even more apt for those not looking back on the bulk of their life's work. This is truly a book, and a life, worth paying attention to.

--- Reviewed by Lisa Ann Cockrel

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, warm, spiritual, memorable book., October 18, 2008

By 

Carl A. Dixon (Bradenton, Fl United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Attentive Life: Discerning God's Presence in All Things (Hardcover)

I was given this book by a lady very much older than me who is still discovering life every day (I am 61). The man who led me to the Lord is a friend of Leighton Ford and I have met Leighton Ford some years ago. This book became better and better as the chapters progressed. I also read it slower and slower as I neared the end. Since I am an evangelical Pastor and Bible Teacher I was suspicious at first of Leighton's attendance at a monastery. But I need not have worried. If you are young read the chapters past your time of life with anticipation. But since I am closer to the end than the beginning I was emotionally and spiritually moved by the chapters closer to the close of the book. I can only say that this book has drawn me closer to Christ and made me more determined to slow down but keep moving - to pay attention but keep learning and to long for heaven but keep living on earth. I wish I could go for a walk with Leighton to the top of Grand Father mountain. I can only thank God for a life still being well lived and a book that has lifted my soul toward eternity.