I have started taking the long way to get places. I don’t go too far off course, but if I can head a couple blocks in the wrong direction before I loop back toward home or the office, I’ll do it.

Since adding a baby to my life, it can feel like any time I’m not working, I’m on parenting duty. Moments of silence, stillness and rest have disappeared. Except in the car.

For the few minutes I’m driving I can be alone, quiet, and free of responsibility. I can relax, and breathe, and center myself for the busyness that waits on either end of my journey.

This week we begin Lent, a season of preparation and introspection. It is a season when many choose to give something up – a food, a habit, a certain social networking site. Sometimes I hear people bristle at this practice. For them it smacks of a negative self-denial. But for me it’s the opposite, not self-denial but self-indulgence.

The practice of giving something up is about creating space – within our full calendars, within our full cupboards, within our full minds – and allowing God to fill that space with peace, with healing, with joy.

What could be sweeter? Like sneaking in one more great tune before facing the morning’s emails or allowing yourself a ‘driveway moment’ before you return to parenthood. The gift of space is so rare; the gift of silence, of stillness, the gift of an unprogrammed hour in which to meet Love. It is downright luxurious!

Lent is that gift, an excuse to treat ourselves to the thing we most need: emptiness. The absence of more whatever. An escape from our busyness. An opening for sacred presence in us. It makes me smile just thinking about it. And it’s only week one! Happy, happy, happy Lent!