My wife, Kelli, and nephew, Gavin, and I drove to Florida the other day. We drove the 17 hours switching off and on, the kind of trip that stretches your patience as much as your mileage. The open road always has a way of slowing you down, even when traffic isn’t.
There were stretches of peace, yes. Long, wide lanes. Rows of pine trees. Quiet hums of tires on the asphalt. But just as often, there were distractions: drivers weaving unpredictably, 18-wheelers blocking the view, sudden slowdowns for no apparent reason, oh, so many of them!
And yet somewhere in that motion — somewhere in the tension between peace and unpredictability — I found something I didn’t expect. A kind of inner stillness. A sacred space, not on the side of the road, but inside myself.
Not a Place, But a Posture
I used to think sacred space had to be physical. A favorite chair. A quiet porch. My old classroom when the lights were low and the students had gone. And yes, those are still sacred.
But aging has taught me something else: sacred space is also portable. It’s a posture, not just a place.
On this drive, I noticed that even with noise, stress, and unpredictability swirling outside the car, something in me remained steady. The traffic didn’t change, but my reaction did.
Isaiah 30:15 came to mind:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”
It’s not a verse I would have associated with I-95, but it resonated. And it reminded me that the strength isn’t in the speed. It’s in the quietness and trust.
What the Classroom Taught Me About Letting Go
Back when I was teaching full-time, I would’ve tried to control a drive like this. I wanted to know how long things would take, when we’d get there, how to avoid delays. And I approached the classroom the same way — planning down to the minute, trying to account for every variable.
But teaching — especially over the long arc of a career — slowly broke me of that illusion. You can’t predict when a student will have a breakthrough, or when a lesson will derail, or when a quiet kid will raise their hand and say something that shifts the entire room.
Letting go wasn’t giving up. It was growing up.
It was recognizing that holding space mattered more than controlling time. That being present mattered more than being perfect. That real transformation — for them and for me — came in the moments I couldn’t have planned.
The Psychology of Stillness
This drive reminded me of two classic experiments in psychology.
The first is Daniel Wegner’s “White Bear” study, where participants were told not to think about a white bear. Unsurprisingly, that’s all they could think about. The takeaway? The harder we try to suppress uncomfortable thoughts or moments, the more they control us.
Instead, we can acknowledge the irritation, the restlessness, the discomfort — and let it move through us.
That’s what I did on the road. I didn’t try to “think positive” or force calm. I just noticed the noise… and returned to center. I tried mindfulness, the “being present” of meditation.
The second study is from James Gross, who found that people who regularly reframe negative situations — consciously changing how they interpret events — experience better emotional health and resilience.
That’s what sacred space is, in a way. It’s a reframe. It’s choosing to see traffic not as delay but as a teacher. The car not as confinement but as sanctuary. The journey not as something to survive but something to attend to.
Carrying It Forward
This is what I want to say to my former colleagues — and to any teacher reading this in the quiet of late summer:
The classroom will get busy again. There will be chaos and noise and interruptions. But the sacred space doesn’t have to go away.
You can carry it with you.
Into your lessons.
Into your responses.
Into your presence.
That space where you’re no longer striving, but noticing. No longer reacting, but responding. No longer trying to do it all — but trusting that your being is enough. You are enough.
This is especially true as we sit in late summer — that in-between space where school isn’t quite back, but it’s close enough to start buzzing in the back of your mind. It’s tempting to jump ahead, to start preparing and planning and pushing.
But maybe there’s still time for something else. Maybe what this moment really calls for is a pause — a rest stop, a breath, a moment to remember who you are before the rush begins again.
A Final Turn in the Road
The highway isn’t always kind. Neither is the school year. But they both offer us something important:
A chance to slow down inside, even when the world speeds up.
A chance to stay grounded, even when the road gets bumpy.
A chance to let go of needing to control it all — and to meet life from a deeper place.
Stillness is strength.
Sacred space is portable.
And no matter where the road leads next — we can carry both with us.
