During this past spring’s spiritual formation program residency, my instructor noted that the average time someone spends looking at a piece of art in a museum is just 21 seconds.
Glancing is the hurried impulse to see it all.
Gazing is something altogether different
a willingness to let everything else fall away,
to focus wholly on one thing.
The Cliffs by Jules Breton – National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Photo taken 3/17/25
The image above is currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. This work has become a quiet companion to me. I’ve even made it my screensaver. A simple act, yes, but one that offers both fleeting glances and intentional pauses.
But here’s the truth: setting an image as your screensaver is not the same as sitting with it.
It’s not gazing.
It’s not stillness.
It’s not surrender.
It’s not formation.
This image has become a mirror to my year, one defined by slowing down.
Last June, I stepped away from a fast-paced executive role where my bio once read:
“Mary Gunther understands what it means to operate in a rapidly changing environment.”
I was known for gut instinct and quick action. Even a fellow cohort member recently remarked how unexpected it was to see me in the role of spiritual director.
Fair.
I’ve always been a noisy contemplative.
But I’ve been listening more closely to Henri Nouwen’s definition of spiritual discipline.
“A spiritual discipline is anything that asks us to slow down, order our time, desires, and thoughts…
to resist the impulsiveness, selfishness, or hurried fogginess of mind.” Henri Nouwen
So I’ve opened up wide spaces in my calendar. I’ve created moments to be with God, myself, and others.
The old lines of my résumé no longer fit me.
I’m learning the discipline of pause. Of presence. Of staying with the gaze.
Even my low participation on various social media platforms has become part of this practice.
In a WhatsApp group of 45, the expectation of quick replies—hearts, prayer hands, instant reactions—feels overwhelming.
This season, I’m resisting the pull to “perform” presence. I’m choosing instead to live it—slowly, fully, honestly.
And maybe that’s the quiet invitation of this season: to resist the impulse to rush through beauty, presence, or conversation—to stop merely glancing and start gazing. Because transformation rarely happens in a hurry. It unfolds slowly, often unnoticed, as we return to the same image, the same person, the same place of prayer, one second at a time. Perhaps those 21 seconds aren’t just a measurement of attention, but an invitation to begin again. To stay a little longer. To truly see.