still

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Two separate times since Easter I have sat still.

Once on the banks of a river, just watching the river slide past, and occasional turtles and fish stirring the calmer waters.

Once on the beach as Eli jumped wave after wave after wave.

Stopping those two times made me realize how much I need to be still. A different sort of thinking takes place there. Un-multi-task thinking. No new stories to scroll up through. Just sitting, allowing my soul to catch up with my body.

Today I read this in the book Through the Year with Thomas Merton. He wrote it a long time before the words multitasking and facebook were popular.

"The question arises: is modern man--confused and exhausted by a multitude of words, opinions, doctrines, and slogans--psychologically capable of the clarity and confidence necessary for valid prayer? Is he not so frustrated and deafened by conflicting propagandas that he has lost his capacity for deep and simple trust?" (from Thomas Merton's Life and Holiness)

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