Nature abhors a vacuum. My bedroom at home appears to be no exception to this law.1 Each time I come back for break, my unused room has become a storage closet or staging area for one household project or another. I normally spend the first day or two of vacation cleaning out the accumulated junk, and I find the process of purging and organizing to be therapeutic.2 Each year I get a little closer to goal of the 100 Things Challenge,3 and having things organized makes me feel at home.
I’ve been struck over the past few weeks by how Advent calls us to spiritual housekeeping as well. This is the first winter that I’ve said the Divine Hours,4 and the lectionary passages have been a constant reminder that Christ is coming, and that our job is prepare the way for our Lord. The stories of the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist celebrate the first coming of Christ, the Word that became flesh and moved into the neighborhood long, long ago. Jesus’ own words and the exhortations of the Epistles direct our attention to Christ’s Second Coming. The day and the hour are unknown, but Jesus tells us to watch and wait, because he is coming soon.5
- variously attributed to Aristotle, Descartes, and Spinoza, among others; also a corollary to Parkinson’s Law [↩]
- After a week of final exams during which my thoughts have been consumed with theories of the Immaculate Conception or swing votes on the Supreme Court, putting things in boxes is wonderfully mechanical [↩]
- nowhere close, but less is still more [↩]
- a wonderful collection of fixed-hour prayer from Phyllis Tickle [↩]
- Matthew 24: 36ff [↩]