Clearing a Place for God

In the season of Advent, we are called to action. Now is the time of preparation for a momentous approach of something that, if we are ready, if we are willing, will spill into us grandeur.

In this dark time, when the sun has become stingy with its light, a greater illumination approaches, and our darkness will be dispelled by a glorious Light if we have done our appropriate groundwork.

Meister Eckhart has some good advice in this season. In a sermon he once said, “Now pay close attention to this! I have often said, and great masters say it too, that a man should be so empty of all things and of all activities, both inner and outer, that he can become a place for God, where God can act.”

Yet how easy is it to empty yourself in the middle of preparations for Christmas? The shopping, the planning of dinners, the arranging for parties, the excitement of children, and the planning of holiday travel have a way of filling us up—and that’s on top of the usual stuff of our lives that we cram into the nooks and crevices of our being.

Yet God does not dish out more than we can take. As a matter of fact, if you and I take advantage of the time that God gives us, we can begin clearing out an adequate space through quiet meditation and attentive prayer. Capture those stray moments into which we usually cram our distractions, and turn them into opportunities for reflection and pause. You just may discover that those stray moments become expansive and receptive of the annoying things that need to be emptied from our inner and outer selves.

This is the important work we have to do in the preparatory season of Advent. This interior cleansing is making room for an important event that is Nativity. If you and I do catch those stray moments to empty our inner and outer selves, then we might just have enough room for God to act. Then our hands and our feet, our eyes and our ears become Christ’s, and Nativity happens all over again. In that moment, God’s possibilities for love and peace are unleashed upon the world, and hope is reborn.

Emptying really does seem contrary to this season, where we seek to be filled with good food, spirits, and gifts. Yet if you and I do capture the stray moments and utilize them to pour out the inner and outer distractions so we might be filled with God’s purpose, then we will find ourselves on the road to Bethlehem. We will find ourselves filled with the promise and beauty of Nativity.

Joel t