– Paying Attention. Nashville Therapy

Last Updated on January 31, 2024 by Chris Roberts

Testimony

by: Rebecca Baggett

for my daughters

I want to tell you that the world is still beautiful.

I tell you that despite children raped on city streets,

shot down in school rooms,

despite the slow poisons seeping from old

and hidden sins into our air, soil, water,

despite the thinning film that encloses our aching world.

Despite my own terror and despair.

I want you to look again and again,

to recognize the tender grasses,

curled like a baby’s fine hairs around your fingers,

as a recurring miracle,

to see that the river rocks shine like God,

that the crisp voices of the orange and gold October leaves are laughing at death.

I want you to look beneath the grass, to note

the fragile hieroglyphs of ant, snail, beetle.

I want you to understand

that you are no more and no less necessary

than the brown recluse, the ruby-throated hummingbird, the humpback whale, the profligate mimosa.

I want to say, like Neruda, that I am waiting for

“a great and common tenderness””

that I still believe we are capable of attention,

that anyone who notices the world must want to save it.

It is no small task to pay attention; to the world, to our family, to the small freckle on our hand.  And yet, paying attention is the only way to find ourselves present in the moment.  If you stop for a second, and notice, how rarely are you actually paying attention to what is happening in the present moment.

Part of therapy in Nashville, TN at Two Trees Counseling, is learning to get our minds out of the past, and keep our minds from drifting to the future.  If you have been thinking about counseling in Nashville, TN, then feel free to reach out to Chris Roberts.  Chris has over 15 years of experience and would the opportunity to work with you.  Chris can be reached at (615) 800-9260, or at chris@nashvillecounselor.net.