Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Allison. Today's scripture offers us a wiser way of being human as we step into the day.

Today's passage invites us to consider where our attention goes and what it costs us when it becomes divided. The passage is Luke 10, 38 through 42. As Jesus and his

disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.

She had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was

distracted by all the preparations that had to be

made. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by

myself? Tell her to help me. Martha, Martha, the Lord answered. You are worried and upset about

many things, but few things are needed, or indeed only one.

Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

Here's the thing about this passage.

Martha isn't wrong for caring.

She's overwhelmed, and her attention is scattered, and so many of us can relate to this the text is

clear here martha is distracted and that word matters her problem isn't that she's serving

it's that her attention has become divided pulled in too many directions at once from a psychological

perspective our attention is never neutral. What we

repeatedly attend to shapes our nervous system, our emotional life, and even our sense of meaning.

When our attention is constantly split between tasks, expectations, and unspoken demands,

we begin to feel fragmented inside. So Mary isn't praised because she's

passive. That's not the takeaway of this scripture. She's praised because she's present.

She has gathered her attention and oriented it toward relationship, toward Jesus. She's listening. She's attuned. She's fully there.

And this is where the story becomes especially instructive, especially when we think about the

psychology of what's going on. Notice what Martha does when her anxiety rises. She doesn't speak

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