A timeout can be huge at the right moment. I experienced a big one at the end of the 1982 Lafayette-Princeton football game. It was an offensive shootout with a combined 1000+ yards of offense and 11 touchdowns. Our linebacker called a timeout with Princeton on a final drive, needing to score, and time running out. Our Head Coach went crazy, it stopped the clock and allowed them to get organized. The trouble was, we were gassed and needed to catch our collective breath. A few plays later that same linebacker makes a diving interception to secure the win.
In sports, a timeout is a key strategic tool. It can serve many purposes: stopping the clock, extending the game, allowing readjustment, avoiding a penalty or turnover, and providing the opportunity to talk things through and regroup mentally. A timeout can keep us from making a bad decision because we don’t have a clear perspective and provide an opportunity to prepare the best play, or the best defense set. Timeouts can be used to break the other team’s momentum or to have a place kicker over think a game deciding kick. However, timeouts need to be used wisely. They are not unlimited. Games have been won or lost based on decisions to use or not use timeouts.
A family going 90 miles an hour in five different directions needs a timeout
to slow down, reconnect, and remind each other of the priority of family. Companies will use an annual kickoff meeting as a timeout where they pull everyone off the floor and into a huddle. A personal timeout allows us to pause, reflect, and pray. We can take the off-ramp from life’s highway and evaluate the road we are on.
Advent is meant to provide a timeout. As we await Christmas and the celebration of Jesus’ birth, Advent provides an opportunity to settle, refocus, and allow a readjustment. We can use it to catch our collective breath and break the momentum of our frantic lifestyles.
Advent is a time of space, patience, and expectation. It is a season to help us slow down. It invites us to sit quietly and with humility to be mesmerized by it all. It is counterintuitive to the culture of the hustle-and-bustle. Taking a moment to pause seems to be the last thing we can afford but that is when a timeout can be most effective.
“Pauses are the spaces in which passions cool, civility gets it oxygen, and wisdom quite possibly finds its wings.” – Frank Bruni
The art of pausing can be as simple as breathing, stretching, drinking a coffee, or gazing out the window or at a photo of a loved granddaughter. The act just needs to be done with intention to allow for clarity, rest and realignment. It’s important to pause every now and then to appreciate all that we have – on every level. We need to literally “count our blessings.”
When we wake up in the morning or before going to sleep at night, take a
minute or two while snuggling in bed to think about what we are grateful for in life. As the Little River Band sang, “Take time to make time, make time to be there.” Often, all it takes is a simple pause to get us in touch with truth and beauty.
God knows our needs better than we do, including when it is appropriate for us to call a timeout, to stop and regroup. In Mark’s gospel (Mark 6:31), Jesus called a timeout. Jesus recognized the disciples needed to catch their breath. Calling a timeout can allow us to follow the rhythms of nature and not man. God’s ordained timing will serve us better than being distracted by any scoreboard.
At this time of year our culture begs us to dive into consumerism. There is an inordinate emphasis on material things. Gift giving is not wrong, it just can’t consume our focus and become a barometer for how we value ourselves and others. When we dwell too much on what’s external, we lose focus on what’s internal—then we lose sight on what’s eternal. We cannot live the materialism, noise, and busyness of the culture, if we want to be spiritually prepared to encounter Jesus.
Advent can be considered a “Statio,” a holy pause. Statio is a spiritual practice of pausing in transition to be present and conscious of what’s to come. It’s a meditative pause that can be done between activities, such as between work and rest, or between one class and the next. The practice involves breathing deeply and asking God for help with the next thing to do.
The birth of Christ on Christmas Day was a game changer. It takes a holy pause, a timeout, “Advent” to truly absorb this new reality.
