Advent's Comfortable Pace

Recently, I went running on a Sunday afternoon. For most of this year, I have been in training for one race or another, and in training, every run has a purpose. Distance, pace, time, and route are all planned for a training run, so I can prepare for an upcoming race. But this particular Sunday run was not a training run. I simply had a few hours to spare on a beautiful fall day, so I laced up my running shoes and headed out.

Even as a I started, I didn't know how far I would go. I intentionally left my watch at home, so I wouldn't be tempted to track my time. This was a run for the love of running, and my only goal was to settle in at a "comfortable pace" and run until I felt like stopping.

Every runner knows what a comfortable pace is. It's slower than race pace, and you're not pushing too hard, but you're not dragging your feet either. You aren't breathing so heavily that you can't carry on a conversation, but you are still tired at the end of the run. And one person's comfortable pace is not the same as another person's. A comfortable pace is not measured by a stopwatch; it is felt in the rhythm of one foot in front of another, over and over again.

I've been thinking about pace a lot as we enter Advent, the season of waiting. In the first cold days in December, at the beginning of the Christian year, we are called to wait. Advent is not the time to celebrate, nor to busy ourselves with Christian service, as it is with other seasons. Advent is the time to wait for the coming of the Christ child.

The season of waiting is a season meant to be lived at a "comfortable pace." Yet how many of us take off sprinting the moment Thanksgiving ends, constantly accomplishing "merry" tasks until we are out of breath? And others of us drag our feet, thinking that if we stay behind the pack, no one will notice that we'd rather this whole thing be over with so we can get on to other things.

Somewhere in between is the comfortable pace, which again is felt, not measured. The blessing of the comfortable pace is that sometimes we get lost in thought and lose track of time. We are going slow enough to notice the things we pass along the way and to reflect upon their meaning in our lives. Yet we are not standing still. We are constantly moving further along the trail from where we started to where we have yet to be.

Finally, we arrive at the end of our run, welcoming God-with-us on Christmas Day. The journey was long and tiring, but we are also glad that we chose to make the journey in the first place. I'm glad I went running that Sunday afternoon, and because I found my comfortable pace I was able to go further than I had planned. Sometimes, we only make it because we find the comfortable pace between sprinting and dragging our feet.

This Advent season, I hope we will all find the comfortable pace that allows us to converse with neighbors on this journey, and reflect on what we see together as we move closer each day to the joy of Christmas.