Sometimes it is helpful to be able to step aside from our everyday life, in order to pay attention to what is going on in both within and around us.  Both retreats and quiet days can provide such spaces, where we can pause a little. I think R S Thomas puts it well:

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I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

 

on to a receeding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

 

The Bright Field (R S Thomas)

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