The Space Between Stillness and the World~

I am so grateful that God guided me to these words this morning…
I’ve been reading A Year with Thomas Merton. Honestly, it’s not an easy read. Thomas Merton doesn’t offer quick inspiration or easy comfort. His words make you sit longer than you might want to. Sometimes I have to read them multiple times to “get the drift.”
But today, something settled in.
He writes about being carried along by “an alien movement,” a current in the world that is not his own. And I felt that.
Lately, I’ve been feeling it more and more.
The noise.
The constant motion.
The pull toward consumption, distraction, and surface-level conversation.
Even something as simple as traffic can feel overwhelming, as if I’m caught in a current I didn’t choose.
And I notice something in myself:
a desire to step away from it all.
Not dramatically, in a run-away-from-my-life kind of way.
But a quiet pull toward stillness. Toward something more grounded and true.
And yet…
I know I’m not meant to disappear.
I’m not meant to live isolated from the world.
I’m meant to be in community. To connect. To serve. To share this journey as I’m living it.
So where is the balance?
That’s the question that keeps rising.
Because part of me wonders if I lean too far into stillness, do I lose my place in the world?
But if I stay too engaged in the world, do I lose myself?
Maybe the answer isn’t choosing one or the other.
Maybe it’s learning a rhythm.
A rhythm of returning.
Returning to stillness as a way to remember who I am.
Returning to the world, not to be carried by it, but to move through it with intention.
Maybe stillness is not separate from my calling.
Maybe it is my calling.
And from that place, I go out. I connect. I write. I listen. I serve.
And when I feel myself drifting, when I notice the noise getting louder than my own inner knowing, I return again.
Not to hide.
But to realign.
I’m beginning to see that I don’t have to participate in everything to belong.
I don’t have to match the pace of the world to live fully within it.
I can keep my distance where I need to.
I can protect my peace.
I can choose what is mine to carry and what is not.
And maybe that’s how I serve best.
Not by merging with the current…
but by staying rooted enough to move differently within it.
Still learning. Still practicing. Still returning. 

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