What do you notice?

Tattling has always been a serious crime around our house. I have long lived by the rule that both the tale-teller and the wrongdoer will be punished. “Work it out! Unless there is blood. Then come get me” has been my parenting mantra for over a dozen years. And I can never understand why that Mother of the Year award just keeps eluding me?

With three boys constantly bumping into each other around here, there is always one who needs to tell a tale. And right behind him is the angry brother who feels the need to call that boy a tattletale. And I am a terrible referee. Work it out! Unless there’s blood!

A few years ago, however, I realized that my youngest had misunderstood this rule. He believed that every time he got in trouble another person should suffer the consequences too. You see, he has always assumed that his brothers tell constant tales on him. He has no idea that my “things little boys do when I’m not looking” instincts are second to none. I don’t need tattletales. I just know.

He learned, though, that he could not use the word tattletale around me and get away with it. So every time he got in trouble for something, he would hiss at one of his brothers, “You’re such a NOTICER.”

Since he wasn’t using the dreaded word, I ignored it. Until this started.  “Mom! He called me a noticer again! Mom! It’s not a nice word! Make him stop!”

A noticer? I’m not even sure it is a word. My spell check keeps telling me to fix it.

I finally asked the pouting little guy what he meant when he called his brother that. “I mean that he notices and tells everything. He’s a noticer!” he sputtered and squirmed spitting out the words from his timeout seat.

And like the super, awesome, always in control parent that I am. I laughed.

A noticer — one who notices and tells. One who pays attention and points out what he/she sees.

Actually, I think I want to be one of those.

A noticer who can see the way the sunlight dances shadows across the floor, who pays attention to the trees bending in the breeze or the clouds streaking across the sky. One who doesn’t miss the quiet smile of a friend, the downcast eyes of a tired neighbor, the love of order in the way a person does his job or the love of life that exudes from a laughing companion.

Noticers have eyes to see the beauty and the lovely that can hide in the corners of this world. They recognize gifts from a God present in whispering wind, glowing fires, twinkling eyes and unraveling melodies. Noticers learn to look and listen. And when they see and hear, noticers tell of these things. Yeah, I want to be one of those.

However …

In reality, these are not often the things I notice; not the things of which I tell. Instead, I zip through my day aware of people in my way, slow drivers, ominous clouds, dirty floors, handprints on the wall and whiny voices. I notice these things without even meaning to. And I tell of them. All day long.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Jesus teaches the people this during his Sermon on the Mount because he knows they need to change the way they see. And I love the way Eugene Peterson puts it in his translation of the Bible, the Message, “You’re blessed when you get your inside world — your heart and your mind put right. Then you can see God in your outside world.”

Those words sting a bit as they roll through my head because if I am being honest, my inside world can so often be more like that of a tattler. I can want justice for the wrongdoer and credit for work that needs to remain unseen.

I want to be the one who gets noticed instead of simply being the noticer. 

And that’s how I miss it. I miss seeing the glory of God in the land of the living. I miss the way that God is with us here, where we actually live. I miss him in the words of my friends, in the eyes of my kids, in the sunlight and dusk and crazy dinner conversations. 

“And surely I am with you always…” (Matthew 28:20). Jesus speaks it gently to my tired heart. Open your eyes and notice. I AM all around you. 

Yeah. I want to be a Noticer. But sometimes it takes a timeout for me to figure how that works.

My little guy is bigger now, but that word from his younger days has stuck around. We still talk about noticers in our house. We’ve just tried to change the context.

Be a noticer of good things, I remind him daily. And when he asks if it’s okay to tell on those things, my response is always the same.

“Noticers of good should always tell.” Everyday I try to take my own advice.

So here’s to being a noticer; to seeing God in unexpected places … and to telling on Him. May we learn to do this well.

Amen!