Spring day...it feels like summer

It is unimaginably spring today.  It seems all the birds have returned.  The trees are dropping pollen to beat the band.  Those of us with spring allergies don*t even have to see the pollen to know it is there.  Still, it seems imperative to open up all the windows and doors and bring the outside to the inside. The cat is already exhausted from watching the birds in the backyard.  He is now sound asleep.  I don*t know whether it is pollen or the sheer outside-ness that makes me sleepy at lunchtime today.  It is not just the natural world, either.  It*s cars and trains and sirens and airplanes, distant noises when the house is all cocooned for the winter.  No more of that muffle that snow provides, either.  

Consider this:

Part of Lent for me is newly paying attention.  Or perhaps paying attention to new things.  What do you notice today that was missing even yesterday?  Maybe it is part of the natural world, maybe not.  It is different for each of us.  We are each given different things to notice, I think.  We get all bollixed up inside when others don*t notice the same things we do.  Sometimes we question our own insight.  Sometimes we question what others see.  What do you notice today that was missing yesterday?  With whom can you share the insight?  To whom might you ask the same question?

Switch it up

When I go to the mall I usually park in the same parking lot as close to the same spot as I can.   I use the same entrance.  It makes life easier.  My brain doesn*t have to work very hard to find my car if I am parked in the same spot I normally park.   Simpler is better, right? 

Not necessarily, say all the brain experts.  It is good to switch it up.  Much as we are creatures of habit, much as we prefer to do the same thing in the same way, it is good to make our brains work even on these simple things.  There is evidence that making simple changes such as parking in a different location makes our brains work in new ways.  All those routinized things we do make it easier to stay on autopilot.  We tend not to see as much, experience as much, when our brains run in the usual way.  Sometimes efficiency, doing things in the tried and true and routine way, makes us miss more essential things. 

Consider this:

Habits can be changed, little by little.   While I could write a piece about good habits and making those same inroads into our brains, there is something about going through life on autopilot which I find contrary to living the life of faith.  What would it mean to take a different route to work, say?  Or park in a different place?  Or perhaps pay attention to a section of the world you have missed while on autopilot?