paying attention by jonny
	Outside our apartment building is a car with a bumper sticker that says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Every time I am out walking the dog or the baby it catches my eye and interrupts some mundane train of thought about what to have for dinner or whether to get a Starbucks coffee. I think it’s very true and it makes me feel better about myself for feeling outrage sometimes. But that’s just the thing: I only feel outrage sometimes. When I do feel it, I feel it hard. But surely I should feel it more often about things other than MCI’s lack of customer service or my building’s elevators both being broken. Surely those things should just make me frustrated, and outrage should be reserved for bigger stuff. You know, poverty, injustice, war. That kind of thing. Not to get religious on you, but there’s this book in the Bible called Jonah, and it’s about a very flawed man who ignores God when asked to go and save his enemies, the people of Ninevah. Jonah doesn’t like the idea of God helping them and so he disobeys, almost drowns, gets swallowed by a fish, learns his lesson and eventually gets spit out on dry land. He ends up doing what God asked and warns the Ninevites to change their violent ways. They do, and God does not destroy them. Jonah, however, gets very angry towards God’s compassion and cries out to him like an angry three year old and says he wants to die. The book ends with God sending Jonah a little vine to protect him from the sun, and the next day the vine dies because of a worm. Jonah throws another temper tantrum and says he wants to die (again). God, being the patient mother he is, points out that Jonah is more upset over his withered vine than he is over the many people and animals of Ninevah. God asks, and I paraphrase, “Shouldn’t I be concerned about them?” I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly getting angry over the worms eating my vine. Here are some ridiculous things that outrage me: when my Internet service is down, when strangers in the street shout advice about parenting my baby, when my dog barks at the same noises he hears everyday, when my remote controls don’t work, when people don’t RSVP on my Evites, when I have to call MCI, when a favorite CD starts skipping, when my husband doesn’t shut drawers, when my mail carrier puts the neighbors’ mail in my box every single day, when the escalator at my subway station breaks, when “Gilmore Girls” plays reruns for several months right in the middle of the season, when I don’t get free shipping on Amazon.com, when people talk with food in their mouths, when neighbors make any noise at all, when people talk in a movie theatre, when the checker at the grocery store acts like I’m invisible, and when people pronounce Target as if it’s a French word. To name a few. Here are actual important things that outrage me: when people are homophobic, when someone makes a racist comment and I am too weak to respond, when people don’t treat women equal to men, when people are super conservative fundamentalist Christians, and when I imagine someone hurting my child. Do you see how much longer the first list is? It’s outrageous. I am, however, happy to say that when I saw a commercial the other day asking the question, “Does it upset you when macaroni and cheese doesn’t have real cheese?” I was able to honestly answer: Well, no. That sneaky TV loves trying to rile me up. Sometimes it’s so embarrassing being American. My not American boyfriend Bono was once asked if becoming a father had mellowed him at all, and he said that actually having children made him angrier. I now have a child and my outrage comes out in little bits, but I’m worried that it’s the wrong kind. The worm-eating-my-vine kind and not the-thousands-of-people-are-being-destroyed kind. We rode the subway the other day and there was a crazy man near us. I was very scared and a little nauseous as I clutched my baby tightly and did an obsessive compulsive prayer that went something like this: “Oh, God please protect us please protect us please protect us please protect us please protect us.” As if the more times I repeated that phrase the more God would pay attention, drop everything and help us immediately. Never did I think the man needed prayer, or anyone else on the train for that matter. Just please protect me and my precious little family. We’re really all that matters. One of my favorite preachers gave a sermon recently on Jonah and grace, and I felt like I was at a rock concert. The main point was that God’s grace is for everyone. Not just Jonah, but for the Ninevites, too. Not to get political on you, but those Ninevites were not a peaceful people. Ninevah was kind of like America, starting wars and oppressing everyone. The rock star preacher, who’s in his late seventies, said that the most common prayer among Americans is not the popular Lord’s Prayer. The most common prayer among us is a short one that goes like this: “God Bless America.” He saw a bumper sticker recently (there’s a lot of bumper stickers in our neighborhood) that said, “God Bless the Whole World. No Exceptions.” He’s waiting for a politician to end a speech that way. But paying attention to the whole world is depressing. It’s much more comfortable to be obsessed with little problems that are easily fixed. If I truly pay attention to everything going on in Iraq or Africa or America or my neighborhood, it will be too much. I don’t have that kind of time or energy and it will make me crazy. Or so I’m supposed to believe. Not to get philosophical on you, but it’s probably true that focusing on bigger, more meaningful problems takes us out of our narrow world view. I know someone who was recently depressed and self absorbed in the worst kind of way. His own troubles took precedence over everything else, and this was very unlike him. He’s better now and I think one of the reasons is because of how outwardly focused he is. He spends most of his day paying attention to the homeless and disadvantaged children. He’s outraged by the plight of these folks and he’s doing something about it. In other words, he doesn’t have time to get mad at MCI. I think I need a fish to swallow me for a few days. The fish in the Bible story saved Jonah from drowning, and while inside that fish he did a lot of thinking and prayed a beautiful prayer and the next thing he knew he was on dry land again. His time in the fish changed his attitude temporarily, but pretty soon he was back to his good old human ways, complaining and feeling sorry for himself. I can relate to this guy. When I first read the story I didn’t like him so much, but then I realized the part I didn’t like was when he reminded me of myself. He was outraged by the wrong things, and secretly he wanted God to be, too. I have a feeling God is very outraged. And I’m pretty sure he’s paying attention. So the fish was just a temporary solution that moved Jonah out of one bad place into another. As with all things, it wasn’t enough to truly change his heart. So forget about me wanting to be swallowed by a fish for a few days. I decided that doesn’t do any good. For me, I need to start little. I need to calm down over the unimportant things and reserve that energy for the bigger ones. I need to watch “Hotel Rwanda” and let it haunt me longer, eventually leading me into some kind of action somewhere. Or better yet, I need to focus on the few things that I do feel genuine compassion towards. Outrage and compassion aren’t that different, I don’t think. When I feel the most sympathy for someone, there is some kind of rage in me about their situation. The trick is letting that rage last longer than a few minutes so that out of a desire to get rid of it I am moved towards doing something. Anything. Writing letters to Amnesty International, talking to a homeless person, giving money to good organizations that help children, always voting, volunteering, paying attention to more than myself. Then I need to start saying a short prayer that goes like this: God bless everyone. Not just me.