The meeting place for our session in Tokyo was through the double doors to the left of the elevator. I was not surprised to find the elevator padded with brass-studded leather. The fact that the carpet in the corridor was thick and soft seemed usual enough.

The real surprise, however, was that beyond the heavy oak doors, the meeting room was not the average conference room. There was nothing in this maroon and gold-draped room but one needle-nosed red celadon vase that held one fresh yellow rose.

One rose in one vase on a glass table in the middle of a room draped in red and gold velvet.

Nothing but pure mindfulness, pure reverence, pure life. This room, you had to think, had been built for this one vase and this single rose. The stark attention, the sentinel awareness, the utterly concentrated focus on one rose steeped the room in the consciousness of beauty.

When we see things only en masse, in great, large sweeping entities, we lose the mystery of life. It is coming to see life around us in all its singleness, all its particularity, each element of its stunning selfness, that fills the soul with more beauty than sadness or pain can ever eclipse.

Love’s first step is attention. Failing to notice one rose, we fail to notice the entire cosmos.

Focusing on one photograph in this calendar each month—a sweet, juicy tomato; a peacock in all his glory; multicolored eggs in a carton—is meditation enough to make life precious whatever its stresses. It is learning to be present to where we are and what we’re doing that gives life substance. Only those who look and listen ever really find God here.

—from the Introduction to the 2019 Joan Chittister Calendar