The Well That Overflows

In his journal, Thomas Merton once described watching a brother at Gethsemani Abbey carry water to the guest house. The monk moved with such unhurried presence that the simple task seemed almost liturgical — each step a prayer, each moment an offering poured out in silence.

Paul writes to the Galatians, "Through love, serve one another." But the contemplative tradition asks us to notice the order: love first, then service. Too often we reverse this. We rush into serving with clenched jaws and cluttered minds, offering others the dregs of our anxious striving rather than the overflow of a soul that has rested in God.

Teresa of Avila understood this deeply. She taught her sisters that the Interior Castle — that place of deep communion with the Beloved — was not an escape from the world but the very source of authentic action. The soul that has sat in silence before El Shaddai does not serve out of obligation or ego. It serves because love has become its nature, the way water naturally flows downhill.

Centering prayer is not selfish withdrawal. It is the discipline of becoming a deep well. A shallow well runs dry by midday. A deep well, fed by underground springs, offers cool water even in drought.