I’m trying something a little different here on Substack and writing the script for Episode 19 of today’s podcast, When Power Refuses to See: The Bent-Over Woman, The Survivors, and Ourselves, as well as adding the audio. Enjoy!
Paying attention
“To pay attention - this is our endless and proper work.” Mary Oliver wrote that. She was the amazing poet who paid attention as a career. She literally spent her life paying attention.
It seems like the more we pay attention, the more our attention is renewed. It’s like a renewable resource, I guess.
Today’s podcast episode is about focus — and what we reveal about ourselves when we pay attention to what matters. Because focus is one thing, but attention goes deeper. Attention becomes seeing. And seeing is where dignity begins.
Jesus used His focus to restore dignity to people. He saw people. The disciples did it, too. When Peter healed the guy who couldn’t walk as he and John were going up to the temple gate called “Beautiful” Peter looked straight at him before he spoke to him. So did John.
When my family and I lived in Paris for a few months in 2005, there was this homeless man sitting outside a store one night. But this man was just sitting there looking so despondent. I don’t even think he was asking for anything. He just looked so desperate and ashamed. We had just stopped and bought milk, but my husband had stepped into a store real quick to grab something else while I waited outside with our kiddos. So I real quick looked at the man and just asked in French “would you like some milk?” As soon as I asked him that, you guys, his eyes met mine and it was like life returned for a hot second somehow. All I had was milk. And a question. And a super thick American accent. But somehow I was able to offer him a tiny bit of dignity because that guy knew someone saw him.
And then there are times we refuse to see someone, we won’t look, for whatever reason, we don’t give our attention, refuse to see the human that’s there.
The Survivors
Last week, I watched more than half of the House Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Pamela Bondi. I watched it because the Epstein stuff feels personal, you know? And there were survivors in the room. And it was important.
I tried to watch and give it an honest go. I can honestly tell you I tried with all that was in me to look at — to see Pam Bondi as a human, like what might it be like or feel like to be in such a tense place with so much responsibility and hatred pointed at me? I tried. I promise.
And then Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal took the floor. She asked Attorney General Bondi if she would be willing to turn around and look at the eleven survivors behind her. Just look at them. Acknowledge them. See them. And apologize for outing the Jane Does whose names had not been redacted and some of who were now dealing with their families who had not known before her department released their unreacted names.
And she refused. She wouldn’t even turn around.
She kept her eyes forward.
She would not grant them the dignity they deserved.
When she was asked another time about the mishandling of the Epstein files, Attorney General Bondi made her focus clear and said “We should be making America safe.” She said this after going off on a diatribe about how the NASDAQ and the DOW are crushing it right now and how “that is what we should be focusing on.” SAFETY was her focus, she said.
I feel like it’s important to define the word “safe” here. Look it up on dictionary.com. It means “secure from liability to harm, injury, danger, or risk”
I wonder how safe those 11 Americans felt sitting there that day.
So money was her way of ensuring Americans’ safety. But she didn’t look those 11 humans in the eyes or tell them how safe they were because of the greatness of America’s economy.
The next day, the survivors talked about what that felt like — to be there, and to be so deliberately unseen.
That moment stayed with me. Because Pamela Bondi refusing to look at those 11 survivors of is not neutral. It’s a choice. And it reveals something..
There are so many more things I would like to say about that day at that hearing. But I won’t.
The Bent-Over Woman
Instead, I’ll tell you what I found in Scripture. Not to weaponize Scripture but to tell you the plain old truth about a thing that Jesus did. A time He chose to see a woman that a powerful man chose not to see.
You can read it in the book of Luke in chapter 13. It says,
“On a Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for 18 years.
She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.
When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? The should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for 18 long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.”
So we have three main characters: Jesus, this woman who can’t walk upright, and the leader of the church.
Let’s talk about where they each chose to steward their attention.
First, there’s Jesus.
He goes to church on Sabbath. He’s teaching because He’s. Jesus. And He sees. He sees her. He notices her. And He knows her. The way Luke tells the story, he gives very few details about where they are or when it is - on a Sabbath, one of the synagogues. But the woman?
Look at how much Jesus sees!!!!!
she was there
she’d been crippled
not just crippled, but for 18 years
she was bent over
she couldn’t straighten up
she couldn’t straighten up at all
When Luke wrote this down he wrote that Jesus saw her. And the word he used was more than just NOTICED. He saw who she was. He saw she was bound up. He saw she was a daughter of Abraham. I wonder how long it had been since that woman had actually been seen.
And then. He called her over to Him.
Don’t you wonder how long it had been since that woman had actually KNOWN she had been seen? I mean, she couldn’t see people looking at her, she was bent over. She was small. She took up space she probably felt like she shouldn’t be taking up. But Jesus called her over to Him. He saw her and He made sure she knew He saw her.
Then He put His hands on her and whatever was going on with her, whatever had her bent over like that for all those years, he freed up, and she stood straight up. And she praised God.
And so we have the woman. Her attention goes to Jesus. The word Luke used was a word that means “glorify”. It means to value God for who HE actually is. That’s it. It’s all we know about the attention she cared to give to anyone. It’s all Luke tells us. She glorified Jesus.
And then there’s the Pam Bondi of the story. The synagogue leader who wouldn’t even acknowledge the woman in his congregation. The one who’d been in so much pain she couldn’t stand up straight for 18 years but came to church anyway. Let’s notice what he chose to pay attention to.
It’s interesting because at first, it seems righteous and holy to some people. It was the Sabbath, right? He was trying to protect the Sabbath.
God had given His people the 10 Commandments to follow, and the Law said to observe the Sabbath and keep it in the forefront of their minds. Give it attention. Keep it holy by remembering that God had freed them from their bondage.
And now here was Jesus freeing this woman from her bondage right in front their eyes.
Hypocrites!
They were only pretending to “observe” the Sabbath.
Let’s take a look at the word “observe” Interesting choice of words, right?
It’s from Deuteronomy 5:12 where Moses told the Israelites before they entered the promised land all the ways God gave them to live.
Here’s the one about the Sabbath that this synagogue leader was so concerned about:
“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work…On (the sabbath) you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may res, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought your out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded your to observe the Sabbath day.”
So the word OBSERVE Shamar in Hebrew. Look at some of the words used to describe what this word means in Hebrew: guard; to protect, attend to, take heed , look narrowly, observe, preserve
**So let’s get this straight: The guy in charge of church that day - his job was to guard and protect the holiness of the Sabbath so that the congregation would remember they’d been freed from bondage. To actively observe and remember the meaning of the Sabbath.
I mean, I guess it could have been an ethical conundrum. Like uh-oh. Is this work? But. If this guy had been STEWARDING HIS ATTENTION, no ethics logic would have been needed to be applied. Because clearly he would have seen this woman — she belonged to the people who had been freed from the Egyptians. A descendant of the very people - was being set free in an entirely different way.
And that is what the Sabbath was all about!
I need to confess that I have been distracted by the synagogue leaders’ choices. And by Pamela Bondi. Annoyed by their need to be right and prove others wrong.
So I’m thinking through the three people in this story and how to steward my own attention. And it’s easy, I think.
Ourselves
Because I want to put my attention like Jesus did on people. I want to see the dignity in each person. I want to notice and take heed of every human. Even when it costs me something. Even if it means I might have to turn around and apologize for something I might have done wrong.
I don’t want to be someone who refuses to see a person or their personhood because I’m looking to preserve my own pride. Or because I’m trying to prove I’m right and another person is wrong.
And here is where it gets real.
That is honestly getting kind of hard.
Because it is getting easier and easier for me to see the slip ups and to prove wrong the people I disagree with.
So here’s my prayer: God would teach me how to see, how to look at people like He does. How to slow down and notice who’s next to me and in front of me.
That He would help me remember Him, the one who frees me up, to remember the weight of His substance and His value first and foremost and not let the bullies who refuse to see the humans make me so mad I forget to remember.
That doesn’t mean I’m shutting up about the bullies who refuse to see. It just means I’m asking God to help me steward my attention well. So I spend it well.
That He would help me remember Him, the one who frees me up, to remember the weight of His substance and His value first and foremost and not let the bullies who refuse to see the humans make me so mad I forget to remember.
It doesn’t mean I’m shutting up about the bullies who refuse to see. It means I’m asking God to help me steward currency that is my attention well. So I spend it well.
Maybe you’d like to join me.
Here are a few books I’m reading and some podcasts that are helping me learn more about this. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis; Rhythms of Faith by Claude Atcho; The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
Podcast episodes: Check out the Spiritual Misfits Podcast on Spotify. There’s an episode titled “A Hidden Life in the Attention Economy” with Justine Toh
Journal Prompts to help you process:
1. When Have You Looked Away?
Think of a recent moment when you avoided someone’s eyes — even briefly.
What was happening inside you in that moment?
What were you protecting, and what did it cost you?
2. A Moment You Truly Saw Someone
Recall a time when you noticed someone’s humanity and responded with presence, compassion, or curiosity.
What shifted in you when you chose to see them?
How did that moment reveal something about who you want to be?
3. Who Is God Bringing Into View Right Now?
Sit quietly for a moment and ask:
Who is God inviting me to notice?
What person, story, or situation keeps coming into my awareness — and what might God be asking me to see?