The words action and contemplation have become classic Christian terminology for the two dancing polarities of our lives. Thomas Aquinas and many others stated that the highest form of spiritual maturity is not action or contemplation, but the ability to integrate the two into one life stance—to be service-oriented contemplatives or contemplative activists.  By temperament we all tend to come at it from one side or the other. This full integration doesn’t happen without a lot of mistakes and practice