Advent II: Crowded Roads

I grew up in Princeton, NJ, a wonderful pre-American Revolution town where the roads are tight and twisty. “They used to be horse and carriage tails,” my father explained. Picturesque and quaint, they’re now congested with unimaginable traffic. The roads were never meant for the cars and volume of today.

My memory of the Princeton roads came to me as I began this year’s Advent journey. As I head out on the spiritual roads of my soul, I can see that they, too, are congested and clogged. In this important season, my to-do list becomes overwhelmingly long and complicated. Like so many, I try to squeeze in every meaningful thing beside seasonal expectations and obligations only to experience no meaning and meet no expectation.

My soul was never meant for so much traffic. It’s easier to say simplify than to actually do less. Even though I know if I do less I will experience more, the temptation to keep filling remains too inviting. One of my favorite spiritual books has really wide margins, and I have always appreciated the “breathing room” the author gave us to write notes or sketch drawings as we consider the words she wrote. This is the season to widen our margins, to breathe more fully and more deliberately in the rooms of our souls.

I want to make time to sit with someone and really listen.

I want to wander outside and feel the cold air and see vistas that are only possible without the leaves.

I want to smell a real fire and let staring at the flames transport me to who knows where.

None of that’s possible when the pages are full and the list is endless. The problem is, spiritual subtraction takes work and always comes at a cost. Some things inevitably will be left undone. Hard choices will need to be made. Like cleaning out a closet or desk drawer, we often start strong then start giving way to keeping something we might want one day . . . but never do.

Advent is a time to stop sitting in traffic.

It’s a time to slow down, not speed up.

It’s a time to create space, not fill it. (Full glasses cannot receive anything new; no wonder the season can’t enter our hearts like it once did.)

The roads are congested; we’re suffocatingly busy.

In other words, there’s no room in the inn (or on the roads) . . . still.