“You sing a song while sitting at a red light, yeah you think of home while sitting at a red light. Too slow to roll, put your life on hold. An open path with nowhere to go. You start to wonder while sitting at a red light. You can run a red light. Give up at a red light. You break the mold when running through the tolls, speeding through your whole life. A chance to breathe while sitting at a red light; you look around, reflecting on your life….”

I heard this song by Jonny Lang when I was driving home from work the other day. It made me think about how in our technology-saturated, information-overloaded, on-demand society, perhaps being held captive by a red light is the only time for contemplation in a given day. (Unless you happen to be illegally texting, applying make-up, talking on your cell, messing around with your IPad, IPod, IPhone, etc.) Oftentimes, I find myself processing my day, either coming from or going to work, when mandatorily stopped while driving. Or silently breathing a prayer for a loved one who has been on my mind that day. Perhaps, as the song says, sitting at a red light is a chance to breathe. While you are still going somewhere, you have not arrived in that instant, and traffic laws bind you to that very spot, for that moment, until the light turns green and you’re “good to go.”

After reading my share of Merton, St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, and Richard Rohr (my favorite Franciscan next to Merton), I know that living life on purpose, a contemplative life, is a fundamental part of attaining a more intimate relationship with our Father. At the expense of sounding esoteric, I have to acknowledge that true contemplation surpasses mere reflection about one’s life and leads a follower of Christ into a life truly animated by Him (as Rohr remarks). But perhaps stolen, abbreviated moments of contemplation and/or reflection, like those experienced when we are compelled to wait, propel us toward a pattern of intentionally reserving time for deeper contemplation. At least I have to hope so.