Let’s Make A Collaborative Attention Collection

I appreciate David Dark’s concept of “Attention Collections,” laid out in his book, Life’s Too Short To Pretend You’re Not Religious. Attention Collections are the songs on your mixtape, quotes from films that stuck with you, “your stories, your jams, your beloved enthusiasms.” Everyone has them, Dark argues. As much as any explicit religious catechesis, our Attention Collections indicate our religion.

Some of the pieces in my Attention Collection:

“Always double down on 11.”

“To be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable.”

“I would walk with my people if I could find them.”

This weekend I’ll start exploring faith with our 8th grade Confirmation students, and I’m enthusiastic about the concept of an Attention Collection as a way for them to start to own the religion they’re walking around with every day, even though they don’t know it. Dark does this with college students, so it will need adapting for young adolescents.

I’m totally doing it though.

Let’s make a collaborative Attention Collection. Share a line, a quote, a song, a film, in the comments–a jam, a beloved enthusiasm.