There she was, like every other day I passed her while out on my run, gently fanning herself with her eyes closed and murmuring a quiet prayer.
She must have heard my feet falling on the pavement or maybe the heaviness of my breath trying to breathe through the thick, humid air because she gently opened her eyes and a huge smile lit up across her face.
I knew what was coming next.
“Girl, look at that booty,” she lovingly joked as I ran past, “always in a hurry to go nowhere!” She said the same thing every time I ran past her house.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Mirley,” I shouted while I continued my slow, sweaty jog down the road, “How are you today?”
“The sun is up. I’m alive. God is good!” She said, her smile grew even wider. And with that, she closed her eyes and began humming a hymn quietly to herself.
Now this is the point in the story where I’m supposed to tell you her words hit a nerve that led to an epiphany that stopped me in my tracks and pulled me back to the porch to sit in stillness with Ms. Mirley where, for a brief moment, I saw God.
That’s not what happened at all.
What happened was… I kept running. Just as you’ll read this month about how our amazing Ambassadors have widely varied journeys in navigating stillness, thoughts kept swirling. And I kept letting the busyness of life spin me in circles. I ran past Ms. Mirley’s house nearly every day, and even walked to church with her on Sundays where she reminded me to see the grace in every moment. And while Ms. Mirley worked hard, raised a family, and contributed to her community — all the qualities I was raised to value — she was never ‘busy.’
Everything she did always came from a place that was grounded, peaceful, and still. She didn’t rush. She was deeply connected. There was always a presence in every thing she did.
It has taken me nearly 20 years to fully understand the lesson that she demonstrated all those years ago:
There is magic in the stillness.
My hope for you as you read this month’s issue is that you notice what happens when you disconnect from the chatter of your mind, connect back into your body, and feel the fullness of the moment. And, while the only true stillness that any of us will ever experience is when our final breath has left our body, there is something in those precious moments where I feel a deep sense of peace, connection, and purpose.
But if I’m honest, any time I sit down to meditate, I want to grab my phone and check my email every five seconds. I’m constantly listening to audiobooks and podcasts because I have a hard time shutting off my brain. I hate taking baths because after three minutes, the water starts getting cold and sitting there doing nothing feels like torture!
Between Zoom meetings, raising a toddler, and working on projects, I hear my soul praying for a moment of stillness. And then as soon as that moment arrives, I avoid it so quickly and default to checking social media!
Can you relate, dear reader?
Do you crave stillness, yet resist it all at the same time?
I’m a midwest girl raised in a middle class family where I was taught the importance of hard work. I’m grateful for the lessons my parents instilled in me because many of them have allowed me to create the life I have now.
But the one thing I have always fought against (yet fallen into) was the idea of being ‘busy.’ Somehow, the stamp of approval for working ‘hard enough’ was being ‘busy.’
If I’m not busy, I’m lazy.
If I’m lazy, then I’m not contributing.
If I’m not contributing, then I’m worthless.
Do I resist stillness because, underneath, I still feel like I’m worthless?
I love the Psalm, “be still and know that I am God.” I can feel those words in my soul. In those moments where I can come into stillness, the sensation I experience is pure love. If God is love, then stillness is our path to God.
So what does that mean the opposite is? Be busy and try to be your own god? Just writing that, I can see how my busyness often comes from a desire to play God in my own life. To try and control the outcome by working hard and proving my worthiness.
Yet also ingrained in me is my time with Ms. Mirley and the image of her sitting in stillness and fully alive in the moment. Ms. Mirley worked hard. Ms. Mirley raised a family. Ms. Mirley contributed to her community. These are all the same qualities I was taught to value. The difference being, I was shown that being busy was the path to reaching those goals.
Ms. Mirley showed me that being in stillness was actually the starting point and the pathway to contribution because coming from stillness means you are always acting from connection, not scarcity.
As we step into this month’s issue, I invite you to feel into your breath and connect back into stillness. Get curious about what might be possible in our lives, our communities, our work, our contribution to the world if we allowed ourselves to stop idolizing busyness and prioritized stillness.
With love, Laura
Do you crave stillness yet resist it at the same time?
