To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone with everything is to succumb to violence.
The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work,
because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
The time for contemplation is the spring that feeds our action, and our action will be as deep as the spring. We need time to allow the spirit to clear the obstacles – the clinging debris and mud – that keeps the spring from flowing freely from its clear, deep source. And we need time for the spring to overflow into insightful and compassionate action.
Thomas Merton, from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
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