We nurture order into being

We nurture order into being, or not. Attentive response, of something which we have only inklings at first, comes more and more into being if we are truly responsive to it. It has something of the structure of love.¹

The world we experience is affected by the kind of attention we pay to it.² The whole illuminates the centers³ as much as the centers illuminates the whole. To understand you need to experience the whole, since the whole reveals as much about the nature of the centers as the centers do about the nature of the whole.⁴

Attention changes the world. How you attend changes what you find. What you find changes how you attend. What you see is brought into being.⁵ Love is pure attention to the existence of the other.⁶

Notes:
1. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 30.
2. Ibid., p. 31.
3. Centers, as defined by Christopher Alexander.
4. Ibid.. p. 31.
5. Ibid..
6. Louis Lavelle, L’Erreur de Narcisse, ch 9, §7: “La charité est…une pure attention à l’existence d’autrui.“

Related posts:
Christopher Alexander on the Nature of Deeper Order
We can only see deeper order with the heart