Oh tantalizing distraction…how you tease with your delicious aroma. You are unexpected melody to the dancer’s syncopated beat. You are beaming sunshine to the painter’s muted palette. You are flame to the poet’s rain of words. You pull at our focus and tempt our senses with your devilish charm. You stretch our attention away from presence, luring us away from our purpose, our calling, our life’s art for fleeting moments of decadence and pleasure.

Distraction enters our lives through doorways of email, phone calls, social media, that haunting book, that fresh creative thought, that new opportunity. These “knocks on the door” call on our clarity, our choice of presence. How much time do we give them? How much do we hold on to? When inspired by the overwhelming “out thereness” of distraction do we neglect what we already carry “in here”?