Devotion as Attention: The Practice of Seeing

Rabia's devotion to the Divine was unbroken attention—she saw nothing else, loved nothing else. In adolescence, belonging is fundamentally rooted in being seen. Teens are acutely aware of when parents are distracted, performing attention, or seeing only the problem child rather than the becoming person. The practice of devotion as attention means: listening without immediately offering solutions, asking genuine questions from curiosity not interrogation, noticing the teen's gifts and growth, remembering details they share, following their interests and passions. This is not exhausting surveillance but sustained interest. Rabia's legacy teaches that love expresses itself first as attention: the willingness to fully show up in another's presence. For the parent-teen relationship, this practice dissolves walls. When a teen feels genuinely seen—known in their complexity, struggle, and yearning—belonging naturally emerges. Attention communicates: you matter, you are worth my presence, your inner life interests me. This may be the greatest gift a parent can offer during adolescence, when the teen's own self-awareness is fragmenting and reforming.