What are you focusing on? What are you missing?
SEEING THINGS FOR THE FIRST TIME
On Sunday, I told the story of a training meeting I went to in my professional fundraising days. There were probably close to 75 of us in the room, and we saw a 30-second video of six people passing 2 basketballs to each other in a rather small space. Three of the players were wearing white shirts and three were wearing black shirts, and they were all standing really close to each other. We were simply asked to keep track of how many times the people wearing white shirts passed the basketball. For 30 seconds we watched attentively, focusing our entire attention upon the people wearing white. After the video was over, we were asked how many times the people in white passed the basketball—and most of us got it wrong! It was more difficult than it looked!
However, the next question and answer shocked nearly every one of us. The presenter simply asked, “Did you see anything else on the basketball court besides the six players and the two balls?” The room was silent. “Really? You didn’t see anything else? Nothing at all?”
Then the newest person in our group slowly raised his hand and asked, “You mean, the gorilla?”
When the presenter asked if anyone else had seen a gorilla in the video, not a single person admitted to seeing one; so he told us that he would show the exact same video again and he wanted us to look really hard to see if anyone else saw a gorilla anywhere on the basketball court. About 15 seconds into the video, a person in a gorilla suit walked right in front of the camera, and a few seconds later stood right in the middle of the group of people passing the 2 basketballs and stood there beating his chest…and then walked off the court.
The question we all asked was: “How did we all miss it?”
The presenter went on to say something like this. “The point is that sometimes when you are so focused on certain things, you miss other things that are really big. Sometimes those things are very important and you never even see them. It is important not only to open your eyes, but also to consider what you are looking at and what you are looking for.”
I began thinking of all of the things in my life that I may have missed seeing all together… the important things… the really important things… all because I was looking at the less important things… and looking for the less important things.
I am convinced that when we learn to see the world through the eyes of God, we will see things we have never seen before. We will notice God’s love in places we have never noticed before. We will look for opportunities to share God’s love and we will see new things for the very first time.
May we open our eyes! May we look at God! May we look for God! May we see God everywhere! And may our lives be transformed by our vision and the things we focus upon!
Aloha nui loa!
Kahu Alan Akana
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