There is one thing that is true of our world today and that is that everyone seems to be in a hurry. We all seem to rush from one thing to the next, not even pausing in the least bit before we are rushing off to something else. We are not only in a hurry in our daily schedules and routines; we are also in a rush to get through with things like school. How many high school students are looking to take some college courses while they are still in high school just so that they can "be ahead" when they actually get to college? We just seem to have this need to keep moving and to not want to wait for anything.

   In addition to our daily tendency to rush through things, the holiday season we are entering gives us an additional incentive to hurry even more. We impose a whole host of pressures on ourselves to get an enormous list of things done before Christmas arrives. The race is on!

   Happily today we begin the Season of Advent.  I like to think of this season as the season for slowing down. This great Season of Advent is a chance for us to purposefully pause to give ourselves a chance to catch our breath.

    Saint Paul tells us that it was only at exact right time; with years and years of preparation before it that Jesus was born. As he put it - "When the proper time had come, God sent forth his Son."  There was no rushing around or hurrying up the process. God had a plan and he took his time to let it develop. All of the years of preparing the world for his arrival were part of his arrival. They could not be skipped, rushed or hurried along.  Time has its purpose.

    The Desert Fathers had a meditation that they used to help them understand this. The meditation centered on a beautiful flower that grows in Egypt, the lotus. One remarkable thing about the lotus flower is that its seed is unique among the other plants in that it can wait hundreds of years, or even thousands of years before it sprouts.  It may sprout the very next year after it is produced, or if conditions aren't right, it will wait. It may wait two years, ten years, fifty years or even a hundred years. When conditions are just right, at the proper time, the seed will sprout and produce a lotus plant and a very beautiful flower. A lotus cannot be rushed or hurried along, and the desert fathers thought the same about human beings. We need to take our time, to slow down and allow God to work in us.

   As we enter into this season of preparation for Christmas, perhaps you could find ten minutes in the morning to purposely pause to catch your breath.  Take some time to consider your blessings and how God has given you a new day to discover his presence in your life. You won't find him if you are in a hurry, rushing around.  You could find him, if you would simply take just ten minutes to pause, to listen for his quiet voice, to look for some hidden beauty that reveals God to you. And, by the way, there is a special gift that comes with this kind of purposeful pausing; it's the gift of peace which some have called serenity. I assure you, if you take just ten minutes a day, you will not regret it.