Name: The Sacrament of Paying Attention
Author: Cameron Bellm
ISBN: 9780802884961

We all feel it: We scroll and scroll, and then we surface from our screens hollowed out, unsure of what we have just consumed or why. We sit across from people we love and find our minds elsewhere. We intend to read, to pray, to simply rest inside our own thoughts, and instead we reach, again, for a bright rectangle that promises everything yet lulls us into a kind of sleep.

Into this digital dusk, Cameron Bellm delivers something like first light.

What if attention were measured not by quantity but by quality—by what it helps us understand about ourselves, by the bridges it builds to others, by the sacredness it ushers us into? This is the attention economy Bellm invites us into—and puts within reach.

In The Sacrament of Paying Attention, she explores what might be possible if we stop trying to merely survive the attention economy and begin, instead, to imagine attention itself differently. Not as a dwindling resource to be hoarded against the algorithm. Not as fuel for getting more done. But as something closer to a sacrament—an outward sign of an inward grace, a way of being with the world that opens onto wonder.

Bellm’s companions on this path are the great noticers: Mary Oliver in her marshes, Simone Weil bent toward the suffering of strangers, Etty Hillesum kneeling on bathroom matting in a darkening Amsterdam, Iris Murdoch insisting that love is the long, patient look at what is actually there. Through them, Bellm points us toward an older, richer economy—one of abundance, of gift, of communion.

February 11, 2027
9780802884961
$27
Hardcover
192 Pages
5in x 8in

Reviews

“One of the most important things that Jesus did for people was not only to heal them, but to pay attention to them, to spend time with them. In this compelling new book, Cameron Bellm makes the case that the same kind of attention can transform our world—and each of us.”
—James Martin,SJ, author of Learning to Pray

“I didn’t know I needed this book until I was inside its pages. With honesty and unhurried curiosity, Cameron Bellm opens up deeper ways of seeing and listening, inviting us to sit with questions rather than rushing past them. Bellm doesn’t shy away from the complexities of paying attention: the risks, the difficulty, the cost of staying present. And yet, as she shows us, the effort yields great gifts. This book is not a ‘how-to’ but an offering of reflections and practices that open up the imagination and paths back to wonder and to each other. Pulled in so many directions at once, we have forgotten how to look and how to be awed by the human and nonhuman world around us. This book is a gift for this moment: an honest meditation on what it means to love life, and each other, well.”
—Lanecia A. Rouse, visual artist

“As a poet and a prophet, Cameron Bellm is a clear-eyed guide through the life of faith. I will never tire of her wisdom and the way I always leave her words feeling revived and renewed, like taking a long drink of water. The Sacrament of Paying Attention shines the light we crave in a shadowed world of noise, distraction, and despair. Bellm shows us how to reach the peace we seek: by returning to the present moment where God is always waiting to meet us.”
—Laura Kelly Fanucci, author of Everyday Sacrament

“In our crisis of attention, Cameron Bellm is a prophetic voice. This is the best book on the spiritual life I have read in years.”
—Shannon Evans O’Brien, spirituality and culture editor, National Catholic Reporter

“Cameron Bellm’s writing is honest, grounded, and necessary. Her powers of observation are absolutely incredible, informing a faith and spirituality sorely needed in our times.”
—Gracie Morbitzer, visual artist, creator of The Modern Saints project