Getting Focused in 2024

By Paul Roberts

Hm. I was so focused throughout my day that I lost my focus.

What I mean is, after a morning where I spent a couple of hours somewhat leisurely ruffling through ideas for either today’s blog, this Sunday’s sermon, or perhaps my “word for the year,” I got down to business for the next eight hours working on the Canyon Elementary Artist in Residence scripts with Carol. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day of work, toying with fables and fairy tales, imagining putting them on stage with the students from one of our local elementary schools. Great focus, and we got a lot done.

Then…whoa! It’s nearly 7:30, and I just remembered my blog deadline is tonight. Time to choose a Muse.

Urania (sometimes spelled Ourania) is the Muse of astronomy. She seems a fitting choice for me to “randomly” select during the season of Epiphany, when Christian tradition says the Magi (wise men? Sages? astrologers?) followed a celestial beacon of some sort to lead them to a new king.

Was my choice really that random? There are 9 Muses. I’ve used various means to make a selection to inspire me over the last few months. Tonight my choice involved writing numbers on identical pieces of paper, shuffling, and pulling one from the stack. I had removed the numbers 2, 6,and 7, since Clio, Erato, and Polyhymnia had already taken their turn. So my odds were one in six that I would choose the number 8, and would therefore be spending some time pondering the significance of the stars in making major life decisions.

I realize I am wandering awfully close to the occasionally hazy line between astronomy (the scientific study of celestial objects) and astrology (the pseudo-scientific guess work done by watching celestial objects on their paths through the cosmos), but sometimes the random choices I make can seem to be magically tied to the scientific fact that through humankind’s study of the skies we know that our solar system formed 4.6 billion years, and now, 4.6 billion years later, here I sit writing about my “random” choices.

Urania, you’re blowing my mind here.

Cogito, ergo, sum.

I’ll be trying to carry that focus with me into 2024.

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What are you focusing on in 2024?

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