The third quarter had them suddenly trailing, taking away the lead they had maintained throughout the first half. The energy seemed to have gone out of the arena--it was too quiet. At half court Lebron James got the ball and I glanced up at the big screen above the court for a close up of his face. There it was--the fire, the single mindedness, the focus. His black eyes piercing, he moved his massive frame like a ballerina, swiftly down the court. The ball was a part of him as he was a part of the entire arena, he weaved and flowed around the bodies, pivoted and lifted, his body and the ball moving in a poetic arch as the ball swooshed through the basket. All the sweat and sinewy muscles of his 6 foot, 8 inch frame was in constant movement with the grace of a dancer. LeBrone's God given gift of athletic prowess has been honed to exquisite perfection through countless hours of practice and focus.

I sat in the Q-Arena, cajoled by my husband to attend the game. I had resisted leaving the house, my energy doused by the endless grey winter days, yet my husband had insisted that I go to the game saying, "I promise you will enjoy it." So in an arena of thousands of screaming fans, I sat hunched down in my black coat and my morose mood. The energy of, not only LeBrone, but the workings and energy of the entire team began to seep into me and by the second half I was standing up and yelling like any other crazy Cleveland Cavs fan. 

To become a contemplative one must develop the spiritual eye of attention, a deep seeing, seeing into the life of things, hoping for a divine glimpse.

I would add that the beauty of the world is Christ's smile for us whenever we see the life force, the energy and focus, the gifts of what constitutes our humanity. There are those rare individuals who are blessed with exceptional gifts and motivation and it is beautiful to behold their expression, like seeing a prayer on a basketball court. But God's myriad expressions and unique manifestations of each of our gifts exist in every one of us. God knew each of us before we were created in our mother's womb (Jeremiah) and our prayer is the focus on this beauty within that proceeds from God dwelling in our souls, as we send it out into the universe. Living our lives with simple beauty, truth and goodness, this too is like a sacrament. 

Theologian John Navone writes, "Beauty is at the heart of all human motivation. True beauty as the attractiveness of the truly good motivates human life and development in that intellectual, moral and religious self-transcendence that constitutes human authenticity or excellence. Without our experiencing the attractiveness or beauty of intellectual, moral and religious good, such goods are bereft of the their power to transform our lives. Beauty is the enabling power of the truly good to draw us out of ourselves for the achievement of excellence." *  

It has perhaps become more rare in our fragmented, chaotic, ADD world to see such quiet focus, but when you see a single mindedness focus you marvel at its beauty--it is a kind of prayer expressed with gratitude and grace. Only a week before the Cavs game I had watched a different form of that focus in a very different setting. In the silence of a monastery in the middle of Kentucky I watched, mostly old men, file into pews to chant prayers five times a day. Their lives reflected the beauty of this single focus, day after day, year after year, decade after decade they prayed, until its simple focus of beauty illuminated the essence of their lives.

 Each of our lives and the gifts we are given are a focus, whether it is the simplicity of silent prayers, or the intensity of an athletic gift honed to the perfection of exquisite beauty of a basketball swooshing through the hoop in front of thousands of fans. We get off track when we think it is simply "I" or the focus is on the "I" feeling good, which is often translated into a focus for the next sexual encounter, the next drug high, the next power surge, the next big deal. Strip away the disjointed reasons, our fragmented desires and answer the holy longing of life. Sing praises for the gift of your life and the truly good. That is something truly beautiful to behold.

*Waldron, Robert. Thomas Merton: Master of Attention. (NY: Paulist Press, 2008).