I manage to roll out of bed just a tad earlier than normal. I stumble down the stairs, collapse into a great, leathery chair, and pull out my pile of spiritual reading. I close my eyes, take in a deep breath, bless myself, and…
I hear the scampering feet of my two little girls as they tumble out of their own beds and walk into the hallway and down the stairs.
“It’s not time to come downstairs yet,” I growl. “You should still be asleep.”
“I have to go to the bathroom,” one insists.
“I’m hungry,” the other says. “So hungry.”
I purse my lips together, knowing that any chance at contemplative silence is long gone. I’m not going to hear the end of my youngest’s intolerable hunger until she’s chowed through at least a bowl of cereal.
“Fine,” I say, making a big show of putting my books back on the shelf. I’ll pray tomorrow.
Some combination of these core ingredients derails most days of morning prayer—that is, unless I really creep downstairs in those earliest of hours. I usually don’t, though, and so find the Holy Spirit’s whisper quickly drowned out by questions about the school lunch menu and whether or not outdoor recess is in the cards for the day.
I’m of two minds on the matter. On the one hand, I really should wake up earlier. If I want time to be alone with God, then I have to get up and make that time. It’s my own fault for sleeping in. But then a feeling of failure seeps in, a sense that I’m disappointing God and, well, that’s not the God I believe in. That’s not the God who is constantly delighting.
On the other hand, I think these rampaging children running roughshod over my prayer are perhaps part of that prayer. God might be saying something to me by sending these little messengers to interrupt my peace and false sense of control.
The question then becomes: How do I respond?
Well, most days, irritably. You should still be asleep. I’m trying to pray. Can’t you give me a little peace and quiet? You can wait another ten minutes for cereal, can’t you? And so on.
I’ll bet those aren’t the charitable responses with which God hopes I greet my children. And so, I’m given a chance to try again day after day.
Throughout Advent, we await the birth of the Christ Child. We’ve sanitized the event and the imagery. It’s a silent night, right? Everything looks clean and tidy, even for a barn full of animals! Any of us who has spent more than ten minutes in the presence of a child knows that such quiet tidiness is an illusion.
I return to those two little girls barreling around the corner and bursting the bubble of my sanitized prayer space. They come with questions, with needs, with stories, and with a desire to draw intimately near.
Does God want me to remain in that silent corner keeping the noise of those children at arm’s length? Or does God want me to learn something from a child who interrupts?
That’s what we celebrate at Christmas: the interruption of a child. The shattering of the status quo. An invitation to see things anew, to ask questions, and to draw near to others.
How will we let the Christ Child break into our meticulously maintained spiritual bubbles this year? And can we see that bursting as a continuation of the prayer we’ve already begun?
