Prepare the Way

The play Godspell begins with a haunting voice crying from off-stage, “Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord! Pre-e-e-pare ye the way of the Lord!” Pulled by something deep they can’t even name, people head one-by-one toward the voice, dropping pieces of clothing and baggage indicating the burdens and constraints of their lives and leaving them behind. Later they put on new clothes symbolizing new life with new attitudes and ways of being with one another. (Many thanks to the friend who shared his sermon beginning for the Godspell reminder!)

Prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare the way for the Light that is coming into the world. Prepare the way for encountering God this year in an unexpected place as ordinary as where we feed the animals.

In the season of Advent, as we wait actively for the One who is coming into the word in new ways this year, the work of preparation is to let go all the old ways of seeing and hearing and speaking that block awareness of Sacred Presence. We let go the habits of being and doing taking up space, claiming our attention and our life energy.

While Advent is a time of joyful anticipation of New Creation, we don’t always experience the waiting and preparation, the waking up to see ourselves and our world with new eyes as joyful. Isaiah says to prepare the way by filling in the valleys and lowering the mountains and leveling up all the rough, uneven places of our lives (Isa 40:3-5). Bring in the spiritual bull-dozers, earthmovers and graders to attend to our distorted and misshapen egos, some overinflated, some deflated and depressed, and many alternating up and down depending on the day. What is needed to redeem and reshape our lifelong practiced patterns of defense to create the openness and vulnerability and humility required to receive the One coming into our lives this year in ways we can’t begin to imagine?

A little reflection on our fear reactions of the past year will show us some of these defensive patterns, whether we ever actually felt fear or not. Some of our patterns are so good at deflecting and projecting that we never do feel the fear, but our reactions make it clear fear is operating. Fear shuts down any alternative it can, leaving us with either/or extremes of run away or stand and fight, all or nothing, always or never, everybody or nobody. God always offers us a third way, if we are attentive and receptive.

Of course we’ve been fearful in recent months. We’ve been living with pandemic and uncertainties of all kinds along with mixed messages for how to face those. We’ve lived through a contentious election based in fear for both sides. We are experiencing regular loss, if only of the life we once lived. For many of us that loss is of loved ones, health, income, housing, childcare, family contact, support communities and activities, all triggering fear. The anger, judgment, depression, bullying, denial, scapegoating, intimidation, censorship, moral superiority, disdain, cynicism, victimization, self-pity, contempt, negativity, etc, that we’ve exhibited all point to these defensive patterns. Just because we’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean we have to continue. We’re invited out of all fear and defensive postures into something new and different and full of life. Getting from what we’ve always done to new life also pushes us into uncertainty and how we manage the fear matters.

What are we being called to let go of this year? What patterns have ceased to protect us and are now constricting our lives, if we’re honest? What support might we need in order to wake up and begin preparing the way? Do we have a trusted friend or spiritual companion or director to call on? A journal for reflection? Remember we can always ask for help, if only a silent “Help me!” And then watch for something unexpected—maybe a kind stranger offering the hospitality of listening and caring.

Contemplative practices bring patterns to awareness when we’re ready to see them and help us shift them. In this strange season of Advent, where it feels as if we’ve literally been waiting for months already, I urge you to find practices to help you wake up and prepare the way. There are varieties of practices offered at this website. Here is a link to a guided meditation specifically for Advent preparation.