Advertisements ad

The Family Room by Michelle Martin

May 25, 2008

Look and you shall see

It’s amazing how many Volkswagen Beetles are on the streets these days.

There’s a yellow one that’s usually parked down the street from our house, a green one with an ad for the Peapod online grocery service that is parked in a lot near my office, and all kinds of them in between.

I never noticed them until my kids resurrected a game my brother and I used to play when we were sharing a backseat. In Punchbuggy, the first person to see and claim a VW Bug can give the other a light punch on the arm, calling out “Punchbuggy red, no punch-backs.”

Apparently, under their rules, if you don’t add the last part, punches could be traded back and forth until the car in question is out of sight.

For the most part, the game is fun, although it can get a little too rough — which leads to its immediate cancellation. Part of the fun for Caroline and Frank is coming up with new rules, generally on the spur of the moment: a convertible Beetle is worth two punches, for example, or if you can describe the color differently, you can punch back on the same car (It’s not pink, it’s light red, for example).

I don’t know if there are more VW Beetles on the road now than when I was a kid, but it seems like it. Then again, it seems like there are more than there were just a few months ago, when the whole family wasn’t on the lookout for them.

But that’s the point of the game: paying attention. We tend to miss most of what we see, unless we are actively looking for something, paying attention to the world in front of our eyes. I remember reading about one psychology study where participants were asked to watch a basketball game; when they were asked later if anything unusual had happened, most hadn’t noticed a chimpanzee walking across the court in the middle of the game.

So what else are we missing?

I think we miss the little things most: the flower that went from bud to bloom in the space of an afternoon, the way the crescent moon hangs in the sky just before sunrise, the happy bounce of a dog’s gait heading out for a walk.

But some of the things we miss are big, at least to the people involved: the look on the face of a colleague when we make an offhand comment about their work, the sense of accomplishment of a child who poured milk for the first time (and only spilled a little), the hurt feelings when we take a spouse for granted.

Those are the things we need to be on the lookout for.

The Bible says that you will find God, even in a land of exile, “when you search after him with your whole heart and your whole soul” (Dt 4:29). Matthew says, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Mt 7:7).

But to find the things that matter — to find God, or holiness, or salvation — you have to be looking and paying attention.

Oh, and punchbuggy blue, no punchbacks!

Martin is assistant editor of the Catholic New World. Contact her at [email protected].