ABSTRACT
[...]I am proposing the value of these metrics to a broad spectrum of readers and teachers, whether 'securely oriented' to church and parish, or perhaps disconnected, disoriented or liminal in relation to the concrete living out of their faith and spirituality. 5 In short, our pedagogical and SF vocations require a renewed focus on anti-careerism, care for creation, dialogue, dignity, discernment and hope.6 Our lives and ministries need to be delineated by humility, justice and service, along with prophetic denouncement of today's 'throwaway culture'.7 This throwaway culture broadcasts the anti-gospel stance that 'what is thrown away are [sic] not only food and dispensable objects, but other human beings themselves',8 including the poor and disabled, the 'not yet useful' such as the unborn, and the 'no longer needed' like the elderly.9 Cultivation of these four metrics is vital for the development of an integrated and authentic teacher SF, to promote Francis' life-giving agenda, and to mitigate against the toxic stances that the Pope cautions against. Moorhead notes ways in which, due to COVID-19 restrictions, admirers are challenged, perhaps for the first time, to pay attention to these frescoes in minute detail-artworks that they would otherwise not see close-up during their lives. [...]the resulting images have been published as an 'experience', not just as a documentary record or an academic aesthetic commentary.17 Such an event can serve as a metaphor for what Jesus calls his listeners and disciples to in the Gospels-to a life of continuous waking up and paying attention, often characterised by discomfort and metanoia.18 The need to pay attention is highlighted by a variety of words and expressions in the Bible, such as 'look' and 'pay heed'. Le Bas comments on the demands of such attention, which often overlap with the demand to stay awake: 'It is all about paying attention, paying attention to God, paying attention to ourselves, paying attention to others, paying attention to what is-to reality-seeing what is in front of us, and the promise of the Bible is that if we can do that properly it will bring us the true rest we really need'.21 The quality of attention should evolve to such a degree that it morphs for teachers and others into a unison of love of God and neighbour and as a '"pedagogy of presence," in which listening and "neighbourly empathy" are not just a style but the content of catechesis'22 and of one's SF.