If you have been in the vicinity of the sacred – ever brushed against the holy – you retain it more in your bones than in your head. ~ Daniel Taylor, In Search of Sacred Places

Sacred places and times have been realized for many of us through a heritage of religions or spiritual practices and places we might have experienced at different points in our lives, often originating in childhood. The places where elders might have taken us during a time set aside for the recognition of what poet and spiritual writer Mark Nepo simply names “The More”: that which is larger and beyond our human selves, often imbued in myth or ancient stories and rituals that provide us with ultimate meaning, an understanding of how we and the world came to be, and attempts at naming reasons for our human existence.

Or, on our quest for truth and meaning or while on the path of the spiritual journey, rather than the rote practicing of inherited rituals and traditions, some of us have a profoundly life-changing experience that causes us to understand ourselves and the world in new ways. It comes to be acknowledged through our embodiment of what that experience means for us over time.

A world, a cosmos, is created among people, cultures, and individuals out of the chaos of ordinary space. We inevitably become steeped in the cosmology – a way of seeing, being, and understanding – passing along stories, objects, places, learnings, and practices over generations in ways that become unnoticeable to us, such that we see them as “this is the way things are” or “who we are” or “I am.” Or, as fish might ask, “What water?”

In our recent midday Wednesday class focused on “Sacred Time and Sacred Place,” we sought to understand why some things get to be deemed sacred or holy while others are not. Some participants admitted a resistance to notions of anything being relegated as “sacred.”

The historian of religion, Mircea Eliade, described humans throughout history and across cultures as having two fundamental ways of being in and relating to the world: ordinary and nonordinary. The sacred always manifests itself as something considered nonordinary and distinct from the common or simply utilitarian, or the profane (nonreligious, nonsacred).

Eliade also said that anything – a stone, a tree, a building, a place, or even an action – can be set apart as "revealing" the sacred. They are transformed by people from common (ordinary) use to a sacred (nonordinary) presence, use, or practice. Eliade calls this the act of manifesting the sacred.

The sacred is “sacred” because we declare it so. And it is embodied by the feelings we experience: we often think or say that we “sense” that a time, place, object, or practice is sacred. This is true whether we are talking about our relationship with ancient people, times, places, rituals, practices, stories, and myths that offer us meaning that we carry as heritage or as part of a lineage of teachings that give us ultimate meaning. Or something we come to understand in our present interactions in and with the world that causes us to name when we’ve crossed a boundary into a realm we “sense” to be sacred, and so name it thus.

Even for the most frankly non-religious [person], all these places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the "holy places" of [a person's] private universe, as if it were in such spots that [they have] received that revelation of a reality other than that in which [they] participate through [their] ordinary daily life.
~ Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane

Members of the class were asked to spend time in a place they regarded as sacred; to bring an object they considered sacred for the building of a shared altar during class; and to bring their awareness to a time when they sensed the presence of the sacred. And more importantly, to name why these experiences were sacred for them, and in so doing to bring forward their definition of the sacred.

Among their sharing (all with permission granted):

To me, the idea of Sacred Time and Sacred Place is very personal, something we each come to as we allow ourselves to engage with that “Thin Space”, that liminal universe that accompanies us wherever we go, waiting to be recognized. That is the space, I think, where we engage the Mystery,....that I believe is the “Container” of Sacred Times and Places. ~ Pam Watkins

I have learned that the sacred is not only, as I believed, an external object, concept, or place, but Sacredness is determined internally, by whatever emerges as having deep meaning and value in my own life. This awareness is liberating, freeing me to recognize, embrace, and celebrate such a wider understanding of what fills my life with meaning. I no longer shy away from using the word Sacred, and I actively seek to be present and aware of experiences that I can honestly name as being sacred. I am delighted with this gift. ~ Julie Welch

During Sacred Time I am happy, funny, generous, loving, intelligent, creative, energetic, and a good friend. I am also motivated and driven to do good deeds and be a good steward to the environment and humanity. Our class discussions have helped me define my Sacred Time. I always appreciated it, but with this new designation it is even more esteemed. I am motivated to use my Sacred Time to define my Purpose, something that is currently elusive to me. Perhaps I can find Purpose in my Sacred Space… ~ Amy Wilson-Stronks

I have a heightened awareness of how varied and individual is the sense of the Sacred; and of the tiny, frequent ways that I am in the presence or experience of something imbued with the Sacred…. I see across my life many times and places where I was removed from the ordinary without a plan of place or time; and transported for a moment or moments to an experience that touched me suddenly, deeply, and inexplicably. Without my conscious intention, the Sacred found me. Now, I have a deeper awareness that although the Sacred may be grand, it can be equally compelling – and perhaps more so – when encountered in the unplanned moment or place. ~ Ms. Joan Tilghman

I related most to the superabundance evolution unfolds throughout the cosmos. Connection works best for me envisioning the energy of every particle attracting every other, as has been manifested since the Big Bang in the billion starts in some of the billion galaxies that exist. Beyond that remains that part of nature that I cannot even image. All is sacred. At death, I expect to be reabsorbed and repurposed into that. ~ Virginia Williams

And during the course of our class I learned that some of the folks who work on our grounds had named the woods behind the Sanctuary building, the ERUUF Sacred Forest.

And finally, Julie Welch quite poignantly writes,
Right now world events are shocking in their violence and brutality. We need our sacred places and our sacred experiences to ground us and guide us to persevere.

How wonderful it is to have our very own “sacred forest” so near.

What uncommon Sacred Time and Sacred Places inform your ultimate awareness and meaning-making of world events, grounding and guiding you to persevere?

Palms together,
Rev. Jacqueline