Sacred
I grew up going to church. I was an acolyte. That means during services I would wear a robe and cross, light and extinguish candles, hold the giant Bible for the pastor to read from, and help serve communion. I always felt very special when it was my turn to acolyte. I liked wearing the robe and felt honored to go behind the altar to serve. I wasn’t particularly religious in my day to day life but in these moments as an acolyte, I felt like I was participating in something not quite of this world.
My mom was the church secretary and we lived a few blocks from the church so my brothers and I spent plenty of time running around all the rooms. We shouted echos from the choir loft, ran circles in the fellowship hall, and ate sugar cubes out of the kitchen. We were even tasked from time to time with sharpening the pencils in the pews. This required us to go into the sanctuary alone to collect the pencils. This was a sacred space. This giant room with its vaulted ceilings was not used for anything other than worship. Being in there doing something so mundane as collecting pencils struck such a stark contrast that it took me aback. I took a break and sat quietly for a minute in the pews. The silence of that room which I only knew to be filled with worshippers was deafening to my child’s ears, like a silent buzz. What do you say to God in such a place when yours is the only voice speaking? This was my earliest memory of my own intimate moment in a sacred space.
Since those early days of pencil sharpening, I have had more intimate moments in other sacred spaces. Some of these places have been other churches. I am still quite enamored by the ecclesiastical intimacy a gothic-inspired church architecture inspires. I have also felt this intimacy in Buddhist monasteries, gardens, forests, mountains, and beaches. These places mimic the grandness and beauty of the vaulted structure of those churches I imagine originally designed to bring those mountaintops inside. But what has surprised me most has been feeling it in small and humble places like my grandparents’ house, hospital rooms, or even under a tree. I feel the silent buzz and have a sense of connection to something beyond space and time. What is it that makes these spaces sacred?
My grandparents’ house was small and simple. It was about an hour’s drive from our house so we would load up and go for the day several times a year, usually at Easter or Christmas or some other celebration. My mom’s sister and her family, which included my cousin and best friend would be there and we would spend the day running around and eating chocolate and laughing. I remember having many sacred-space moments there. They came in flashes. It was there that I had my first recognition that time would change things, that my grandparents would not always be with me and that I needed to honor my experience by cherishing them. In my adult life, I have brought my grandparents’ house and these moments back in my dreams.
Hospital rooms are not sacred spaces, except when they are. When my dad died and when my granddaughter was born those rooms became their own cathedrals. Time and space opened up, the ceilings gave way to the mountains and for a fleeting moment, mine was the only voice speaking. These moments are terrifying and thrilling and visceral. I have yet to really know how to handle them. I feel at once shy and vulnerable and yet completely grateful.
What is it about these places that make an opening for transcendence? I am still not sure I know. Nature exudes the divine, churches are places of expressed love and gratitude, grandparents’ homes are places of love and familial connection, death beds and birthing beds are the exits and entrances to this world. Whatever makes a space a conduit for divine moments, I will always welcome it. And when those moments come what does one say? That is only for the ears of the divine.
