Contemplation and Action

I spent today hanging out with a very bad cold, and reading until my eyes burned. Here’s Parker Palmer on the importance of contemplation and its place in the world — not simply for “intellectuals,” but for everyone:

“Rightly understood, contemplation and action are standard features of ordinary, everyday life. Our contemplative action may be raising a child, making things with wood, delivering mail, managing a company, operating a computer, volunteering to feed the hungry, writing a book. Our active contemplation may involve staring out the window, grieving a painful loss. Whatever our action, it can express and help shape our souls and our world. Whatever our contemplation, it can help us see the reality behind the veils. Contemplation and action are not high skills or specialties for the virtuous few. They are the warp and weft of human life, the interwoven threads that form the fabric of who we are and who we are becoming.” (18-19)

So I’m fighting that weird (illness-induced) feeling of being “helpless and hopeless.” Not just a political malaise.

Thinking of what to do next.