#127 - Head on a Swivel: Staying Awake in a Distracted World {Reflections}

What if the difference between a grounded life and a regretful one is as simple—and as hard—as paying attention? We connect three vivid scenes: a bodyguard’s rule for staying safe, a culture bent over its phones, and a midnight vigil in the Garden of Gethsemane. The thread is attention—how we give it, how we lose it, and what gathers at the edges of our lives when we stop keeping watch.

We start with practical awareness: “head on a swivel” as a habit that prevents trouble long before it arrives. From there we move to the everyday drift of modern distraction, from the Chipotle line to school cafeterias where friends eat side by side while living in separate screens. It’s not an anti-tech rant; it’s a candid look at how devices reshape posture, presence, and even identity. Then we step into the garden, where Jesus seeks the highest good in focused prayer while his closest friends fight sleep. Their spirit is willing, their flesh is weak, and the consequences unfold in real time as betrayal approaches from the margins.

Along the way we name the “small foxes” that slip by when we’re not awake—intrusive thoughts, low-grade complaints, and pockets of unforgiveness that breed in the dark. We offer simple, actionable ways to reclaim attention: look up and scan your surroundings, create phone-free meals, take silent walks, and close the day with a brief inventory of where you were most awake. With Lent as a guide, we explore repentance as re-aimed attention—turning from numb drift toward God, family, friends, and the present moment that keeps asking for our whole selves.

If this resonates, share it with a friend who could use a nudge to look up. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what will you keep watch over this week?

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Transcript

Be Your Own Bodyguard

Phones And The Cost Of Distraction

Jesus Prays In Gethsemane

Keep Watch: Spirit Willing, Flesh Weak

Betrayal At The Edges Of Life

Small Foxes And Slippery Drift

What Has Your Attention

Lent, Repentance, And Returning

Share And Join Us At Central

SPEAKER_00 0:15

What is up everybody? Hey, this is Ryan, and welcome to our Reflections Podcast. Hey, I want to tell you about three things today. Uh, I want to tell you about how to be your own bodyguard, uh, people on their phones, and then Jesus praying with the disciples in the garden. And uh I promise I'll connect them. Here's the first one. I read a book, actually, I heard the podcast first, but then got the guy's book. It's a guy who's a former bodyguard and he teaches you how to be your own bodyguard. And the the opening premise is lovely. I love it. So I tell my kids all the time, one of the sayings in my house is hey, head on a swivel. In other words, like look around, pay attention when you're walking out at night, and you know, I have two young girls, and whenever they're, you know, like walking in the neighborhood, I tell them, hey, head on a swivel, look around, pay attention. You know, uh, walk well, look behind you, look on all sides of you. And um, because this bodyguard, who then, you know, he retires and he writes this book about how to be your own bodyguard, he says, most people who are robbed, like at night or whatever, say something like this to the police. They say, Oh, they came out of nowhere. And he's like, No, they didn't. You weren't paying attention. They'd been following you for like five blocks, or they've been, you know, kind of tracking you for a half an hour. You just never saw them because you weren't paying any attention. You had your head down or you had your headphones on, or you were just head in the clouds. He's like, if you had been paying attention, you wouldn't have been robbed like that. And uh, so I tell my kids, hey, head on a swivel, look around, pay attention, and you'll be able to like eliminate a lot of like you know, nefarious or criminal activity, I would imagine. And uh that reminded me of another thing. I was at um I was at Chipotle the other day, and I walked in, I was standing in line, and like I look, I love my phone. I'm not like trying to bang the drum about the phones, but it you guys, it's seriously a problem. And I was in line at Chipotle, and you know this already, and every single person in front of me, I was like 20 line or 20 people people deep, every person had their head down on their phone. And of course I thought I'm gonna rob them all because they're not paying attention. Just kidding, I didn't though. But uh, and then my my son Gavin was telling me he went to have breakfast the other day at his school cafeteria, and his buddy and his girlfriend, his buddy and his buddy's girlfriend were having lunch at a table across the room from them, or breakfast or whatever, and they both were on their phones with airpods in and watching separate things and having breakfast. And maybe it was like a pre-arranged thing, but the here's the thing: like, people just don't pay attention any longer. And there are all these things in our lives that are just so easily uh accessible that distract us. And we just don't had our head on a swivel, which brings me, of course, to Jesus in the garden. And I love this story for a variety of reasons, but I read it recently with this sort of idea of like all the symbolism in this story. And so here's what I think is maybe also going on at some level in this story. Of course, the story is about the story, about Jesus getting arrested, you know, um Judas coming, the disciples can't stay awake, they're tired. But I think below the surface is all this symbolism that's going on. So here's the story, in case you don't know it. So Jesus, right before he's crucified, goes to this mountain called the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, just outside of Jerusalem, like just across the Kidron Valley. And on this mountain, there's this garden called the Garden of Gethsemane. It's actually uh Get Shemini, it's like this uh olive grove. And um, and so he goes there to pray, and uh he's going there, he tells his followers, I'm gonna go there to pray. And to pray, like it's like he's gonna go there to give his attention to God. And one of the ways you could describe God across cultures is like God is the highest good, right? So here's the story symbolically about Jesus going to give his attention undividedly to the highest good. And he tells his followers, his closest disciples, he says, Hey, stay here and keep watch with me. You could also say, he says to them, hey, fellas, stay here and keep your head on a swivel. Pay attention and watch with me. And so he leaves and goes forward and he starts to pray. He comes back to check on them, and they're all asleep. And the text tells you because their eyes were heavy. Like, yeah, no doubt. I've been there. Like, I'm so tired, I can't keep my eyes open. My eyes, my eyelids feel like a thousand pounds, and I just doze off without even knowing it. And uh, but they can't stay awake. And then Jesus is like, hey guys, wake up, uh, watch and pray. Keep your head on a swivel, you might say. Pay attention with me and watch so that you will not fall into temptation. And then he says, Hey, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He goes to pray again, comes back, and they're asleep again. And here's the deal: they can't do it. It happens three times. These guys just are not able to stay awake and pay attention. And they're just like not aware of what's happening all around them, symbolically, the story, you know, like they're sleeping, they're not aware of what's happening, and there's a lot happening all around them. Jesus, their closest friend, or their close friend, their rabbi, their teacher, their model for life, is going to give his attention to God, uh, the highest good, and something, you know, tragic is about to happen, and he Jesus is aware of it because he's paying attention, and they're not, they're asleep. And I think on some level, this is a story about what happens when you and I don't pay attention. At the risk of making this story about me, I'm not. It's definitely about Jesus and the disciples. But I think you could read it a few layers down and be like, oh, this is what these are the consequences many times of what happens when we don't pay attention. Uh, because listen, if you and I don't live our lives with some level of attention and awakeness and alertness, life can just happen to us. And uh betrayers and sinners or things like this can sneak into our garden and cause us harm. There are all these things on like the edges of our life that uh distract us and that keep us asleep. Like phones. Again, it happens to me all the time as well, but like our phones or other things that just distract us from life. And so I think there's like this message in here like, hey, pay attention. Watch. The spirit is willing, I know, but the flesh is so weak. But be awake so you can live rightly and pay attention. Now, again, obviously, this is a story about Jesus, but it's this compelling image about us in our lives. And the third time they wake up, they've been asleep, uh, Judas is there. And if you don't know the story, Judas is one of the other disciples, but he's betraying Jesus. He's there to sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver. He's got an army of people with him. They're armed guards, Romans and Jewish leaders. They're there to arrest Jesus. They've been asleep for so long, this betrayer has snuck in with an armed guard to arrest Jesus. Now, look, it would have happened anyway. I'm I'm not trying to reinterpret the text here. I'm just saying it's an incredible image about what happens when you fall asleep. If you don't pay attention, uh, perhaps it's telling us uh you can be betrayed by things on the side of your life, at the fringes at the edges, these things that you let slide or that you were distracted by or the small things in your life that you let go, or the Bible calls them small foxes. And the betrayer lets in this foreign army because you didn't pay attention. And uh gosh, I wonder how many people in life, you know, end up so far away from home, or where they wanted to be in life without even realizing how they got there. Or how many folks got to the end of their life and thought, my gosh, like where did my life go? This I look, I I've been with many folks who've been uh who have I've helped kind of usher them into the next life, the age to come, who I've been with when they've died. And not all of them are like awake and alert. I don't mean like physically, but like many of them go into this time and like are sort of asking, where did my life go? It I so much of it slipped by with or through my fingers, and I didn't even know it. I wasn't even paying attention. And like, man, like I just don't, I really don't want that to happen to me, you know. Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living. In other words, keep your head on a swivel, eyes open, head up, pay attention. I mean, how many of us find ourselves miles down the road? Uh huge complainers. When miles back, it's like just this little tiny complaint sort of snuck into my life, and I wasn't paying attention, and like, and then before I knew it, I was complaining a bit more, and then hanging around others who were complaining, and then like miles later, I'm like a full-blooded, like you know, complainer. Or my my kids call them intrusive thoughts. If you let those intrusive thoughts win over and over and over again, before you know it, you're miles away from home. Or unforgiveness, these things that begin as like small little tiny things. And if you aren't paying attention, they can make a nest in your in your brain, in your mind, in your soul, and begin to breed and build and grow. And then eventually they can sneak in and take over. And before you know it, you're stuck in a trap. So I guess I want to ask you like, yeah, what are you giving your attention to? What are you looking out for? What are you watching? What are you what are you seeing in your life? Or what is what is distracting you? What's robbing you of your attention? Your attention that you might have given to God, or I don't know, even to family or friends, or life itself. Like, literally, the phone is such a great example. It's so easy to pick on it because it happens so frequently. Like, how many times are we just have our heads down? Um, what do they call like techneck? Like where your head is just stuck in this position where you're like looking down at your hands because you're all we're we are always looking at our phone. They call it tech neck. Like how much of life is whipping by us, we don't even know it because we're so distracted. By the way, it's Lent, and one of the key facets, I believe, of repentance is to slow down, to think deep, and to pay attention, and then to turn around and come home. So, hey, keep your head in the swivel. Eyes up, pay attention. All right, love you guys, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.