I know I’ve told you that I walk shelter dogs twice a month at Animal Humane New Mexico. I’ve been doing it since last fall, and I love it.

They have a nice campus with meandering paths and sniffable shrubs, and a good-sized gated park where we can run around and play ball. Some dogs are very good at fetch. Others are excited to play, but don’t really understand the game. Many won’t let go of the toy after retrieving it. Some begin to run after it, commencing with enthusiastic intention, but then can’t follow through because they get distracted by other sights, sounds, and smells.

(I relate to the dogs who aren’t naturally gifted athletes. When I was a kid I loathed Little League baseball. Nobody forced me to play, but it was a strong expectation in small-town upstate New York in the 70s, so I did it even though I was horrible at it. The coach stuck me out in right field, where I spent every inning praying my heart out that the ball wouldn’t come anywhere near me. I imagine that the coach was praying the same thing.)

Anyway, I think it was from reclaiming my ballgame, playing catch with the puppers, that I got the phrase “on the ball” in my head. And it’s been bouncing around in there for a few weeks. Wondering about what it means to be on the ball…

To keep your eyes on the ball is to be focused, intent, deliberate. Like the best fetchers, who know their target and will pursue it with single minded intensity. There’s no stopping them.

But to be on the ball means something a little different. In some cases this might involve the pursuit of one particular thing. But I think it also suggests keeping oneself open to other possibilities — being poised and ready, come what may. To be on the ball means to be responsive, in good form, nimble. It invites a broader view, maybe demands a broader view, than simply keeping one’s eye on something.

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So I’ve been thinking about this as I try to adapt to a world that suddenly feels unpredictable, unstable, and overwhelming. We are pulled this way and that, from upset to upset, including actual problems and manufactured crises. It has become hard to know what to pay attention to. And even if we think we do know where it should be, it’s getting harder to keep our attention there.

Attention is an important concept in New Thought and the Science of Mind. The basic idea is that we nurture and grow anything to which we give the energy of our attention. Thus, at the risk of oversimplification, we are enjoined to attend to Good — to give attention to that which we wish to prosper, and to minimize our heed of anything which appears contrary or undermining. Ernest Holmes writes: “[W]herever we center our attention its image must concentrate substance into the form of such attention.” And, “By giving our complete attention to any one idea we automatically embody it.”

Our thoughts become things. Our concentrated thoughts become us.

Capitalist purveyors of products and information and entertainment understand this, too. Companies and candidates and causes are constantly competing for our attention. So our attention gets grabbed-at and manipulated and turned into a commodity itself. Website algorithms are programmed to capture it away from us so that they can sell it.

I read an article a few months ago that said that attentiveness is going to be the number one job skill in the next century. Amidst the dizzying onslaught of stimuli, it will be more and more valuable to be indistractable, to be able to maintain focus on one thing at a time.

Which all seems to back up Ernest Holmes’s advice. Concentrate. Focus. Be mindful with our attention. Keep your eye on the ball.

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It occurs to me, though, that it’s not just what we pay attention to. It’s also the context in which we hold it. Not just what, but also how. Also, who we are doing the holding

A context of right size, right time, right place. A context of our own creativity. And an awareness of our connection to and collaboration with each other and the world.

Sure, it’s great and powerful to focus our intentions, our vision. There’s nothing wrong with looking for and finding Good wherever we can, especially in trying times. AND — if we get too stuck on one idea, if we become single-minded about it, we can lose situational awareness and numb our sensitivity to the rest of the world around us. We become less nimble, less flexible, ultimately less able. And while attention may be the number one skill of the 21st century, rigidity and obsession and fixation can blind us to a whole lot of other essential information.

In Greek myth, Sisyphus gave all his attention to the rock. He was cursed to give himself to it completely, pushing the rock uphill for all eternity. Sometimes the ball we’re keeping an eye on, the Good for which we yearn, feels like this — a tremendous and torturous boulder, the heaviest of lifts. Approaching it that way, no matter how worthy the goal, tends to spell suffering.

Is the context of my attention a joyful and triumphant game of fetch with a loved one in an open space, or is it a hellish drag?

I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out not just how to be effective, but also stay peaceful and sane right now. I’m finding that with too many balls in the air at once, attending to all of them makes my head spin, and it seems more and more likely that one is going to smack me in the face or roll down and crush me. But focusing only on one at a time seems to miss the fact that everything is connected.

Maybe it’s time to step back and take a broad view, reassess the big picture. Instead of just an eye on the ball, how about letting our whole selves be on the ball. Whole selves that include relationships and community, collaboration and teamwork, with the entire blooming universe in our peripheral awareness.

I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, February 2, at 10 am. I’m very excited to welcome Zenobia as our special musical guest! XO, Drew

©2025 Drew Groves