Eyes That Defy

a practice in hope-filled resistance

Last Friday marked my fifth year hosting Liturgy of the Little Things—a 30-day invitation to see and settle into the small, sacred corners of our lives. It’s my favorite month on the internet as I become more intentional with my attention and catch glimpses of an ancient goodness that is with us like a whisper, big enough to notice but also small enough to slip quietly beneath the current of our lives. And we do not do it alone. For thirty days, we walk alongside one another in a sort of spiritual practice as we search, savor, and hold the beautiful everyday-ness of our lives out to one another.

Some years, the practice has felt like a celebration of abundance, beauty exploding out of every pore. But there have also been years where goodness seems harder to locate on the map of our existence, due to season or circumstance or the general weightiness of life. And in those years, I have found myself wanting to stop trying, to quit craning my neck in expectance. But it has also been in those long, gray days of November when I have found that this shared liturgy of looking for goodness to be a defiant exercise in hope.

We don’t talk much about defiance as a virtue, at least not where I come from. As a parent, I have regularly witnessed the strong-willed fury of a child refusing to put on shoes or put away LEGOs, and very little about those moments of resistance are particularly virtuous. Defiance is often considered an act of rebellion or a hard-heartedness toward what is intended for our good.

But what if digging our heals into the ground can also be a way to become more familiar with the place where we are standing? What if resistance is a means of remaining tender to the specificity of our humanity and of staying awake to the possibilities of this “one wild and precious life”¹?

Maybe a little defiance would do us good.

Attention is one of the most formative aspects of our humanity. In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell writes, “…attention—what we pay attention to and what we do not—renders our reality in a very serious sense.” What we narrow in on shapes us and subtly shifts the landscape of our souls. But instead of letting our attention drift aimlessly, pushed around by all that seeks to consume it, we can develop eyes that defy. We can cross our arms in obstinance and tell our attention where to go. And not only for our own well-being but also for the common good.

“Individual attention forms the basis of collective attention and thus for meaningful refusal of all kinds.”
—Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Out of love, we can hunt for goodness amidst every blade of grass, every belly laugh, every bite of Honeycrisp apple that dances on our tongues, and not for the sake of ignoring problems or avoiding pain, but as a hope-filled practice that believes, “Even here, God, you are with us. Even here, you are good.”

This searching for what is good in the here and now keeps us grounded, yes, but I think it is also what we might call faith. Because what else can we call the absurd defiance to keep looking for beauty amidst all that seems to be beige and crumbling? What else can we call this inclination to shake our fists at the shadows and shout into the night like the psalmist, “I am certain that I will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living”²?

There is no veneer of romance here. No idealism. No silver linings as we get down into the business of looking harder, of being people whose courage comes through steady and persistent waiting and having eyes that strain to see even the smallest bit of light. This is faith—a way we can be in the world, right in the middle of it all.

It’s a way for us to practice how to see. It’s a way for us to link arms with others in communal defiance of despair and let ourselves be—really be—right where we are. Right here, with all its joys, its complexities, its pain, and its promises. All of it. As

Lore Wilbert

writes in her lovely book The Understory,

“The work of being here and not there or not yet there is good work. It is courageous work. It is hard work. And it is not death work. It is resurrection work.”

It is the work of keeping hope alive. Because here is what I find, again and again: The more I dig my fingers down into the ground, the more I belong right where I am. The more the dirt gets wedged beneath my fingernails and the morning sun seems like a small miracle rising from behind the trees. The more the little things loom large in my vision, the more I see my smallness not as a lack of significance but a comfort, as I begin to see and sense the sacredness already here at my feet.

What a beautiful defiance…

And so, for the month of November (and hopefully beyond), I invite you to join us for Liturgy of the Little Things. It’s not too late. Come notice, name, and share the goodness that catches your attention and causes you to pause. And not for the sake of avoidance or distraction, but quite the opposite: to pay close and careful attention as an act of defiant hope that goodness is here. For you. For me. For us all.

glad our paths crossed,

1. I know, I know. This line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day” might be overused—but maybe that’s for a reason.

2. from Psalm 27:13-14 (CSB): “I am certain that I will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart be courageous. Wait for the Lord.”