The Cost

          However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. (Exodus 16:20)

          I wish I could claim to be different, but I have a short attention span and a poor short-term memory. I’ve seen a meme that joked about people having to pull a box out of the garbage ten times to follow a six-step recipe listed on it. I am that person. That’s one of the reasons I like my laptop. I can take notes about what someone has said. And in our information over-loaded world, I suspect I’m not a-typical.

          I’ve also seen jokes that claim that men toss aside instructions, but I suspect you’ll find that women do, too. Consider Eve, who decided it was safe to tell herself (and others) that they were not to eat or touch the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, because if one doesn’t touch, one can’t eat. There’s logic there, but it’s not what God told Adam.

          I also have to wonder whose bright idea it was to ignore what Moses said about not keeping the manna overnight. For some, it was probably procrastination. “We’ll clean up later.” For others, it was probably laziness. “Why go gather twice?” Still others probably had bags of bags, and keep boxes because they’re perfectly good boxes, and need drawers to hold the yarn and plastic canvas, and a closet for scraps of material that are “perfectly good” and might be useful someday. How can you throw out good food?

          Read this list slowly. When we’re not paying attention,

we get lost,

the food burns or goes bad,

the relationship falls apart,

the child grows up, or

the child goes wild,

opportunities are lost,

advances already made fade away,

fortunes fizzle,

weight is gained,

strength is lost,

hope dissipates,

faith fades,

love cools…

          Nothing good comes of not paying attention, but it's so hard. It requires that we acknowledge another person; focus on their message, their needs, their interest for more than a minute – sometimes for more than an hour! It may involve doing what the other person tells us to do. Such a high price to pay, to pay attention, but the question comes to mind of what we have ever lost by doing so.