Passing God without even noticing

Tonight we continue our book study of Esther de Waal's Seeking God. Here is a quote from one of the three chapters we are discussing this evening from 7-8 p.m.

To listen...means in the first instance that we have to listen whether we like it or not, whether we hear what we want to or something that is actually disgreeable or threatening. If we pick and choose we are in fact turning a deaf ear to the many unexpected and perhaps unacceptable ways in which God is trying to reach us...

To listen closely, with every fibre of our being, at every moment of the day, is one of the most difficult things in the world, and yet it is essential if we mean to find the God whom we are seeking. If we stop listening to what we find hard to take then, as the Abbot of St Benoît-sur-Loire puts it in a striking phrase, "We're likely to pass God without even noticing Him."