Sacred Spaces

In his autobiography, Thomas Merton describes walking into a Catholic church before a service and finding people there -- all in prayer.  Some were praying the rosary; one was praying from a book of prayers; some were just kneeling before the Tabernacle and praying silently -- but all were in prayer.  That, for him, was the moment of conversion.  (More about this on another day.)  It did not matter what forms the prayers took; what struck Merton the most was that everyone in the place was in communion with God.

We consider all of our churches/ temples/ houses of prayer as 'sacred spaces,' and indeed, they are.  They are the places we tend to go to meet with God.  But our souls are also temples, meeting places of the human and the Divine.  That's the way it was in the beginning, from the time of Genesis forward. God never waited for a Temple or a church to be constructed before coming to meet with man. He met Adam and Eve in the garden; He spoke to Cain out in the field; He took Abraham from the land of Ur and spoke to him as he traveled. 

Once the Temple had been built by Solomon, the Jews tended to put their faith in the building as the meeting place.  After all, in the desert, before they had entered the Promised Land, Moses used to enter the Tent of Meeting and emerge full of light, so much so that he had to pull a veil over his face until the light diminished.  But even before the Tent had been constructed, God had come to meet Moses on the back side of the desert, in the burning bush: "Take off your sandals," God said, "for the place you are standing is holy ground."

Wherever we meet God is holy ground -- and from that 'ground,' there is a Divine-Life radius that goes out from us, as the light went out from the face of Moses.  One time, as I was driving home from school in five-o-clock traffic on the expressway, I needed to change lanes, but could not find an opening.  I asked the Lord to open a space for me, and immediately, I was able to move over to the lane I needed.  When I thanked God for the space, He spoke in my heart:  "I'll always open a space for you, because you open a space for my people."  And with those words came a clear image of open space all around me, a space where people could meet God if they but walked into that area.  I was awed and humbled, but recognized the truth it showed me:  whoever makes space for God in his/her life opens space around himself for others to walk into -- and that is sacred space, the meeting-place of God and man. 

Today, in God Calling 2, this was the reading:

As you recognize My dealings with you, Eternal Life flows through your being in all Its sanctifying, invigorating and remedial force.  Eternal Life is awareness of the the things of Eternity, Awareness of My Father, and awareness of Me.  Not merely a knowledge of our existence, even of our God-head, but an awareness of Us in all.  As you become aware of Me, all for whom you care are linked to Me, too.  Yielding Me your service, you draw, by the magnetic power of Love, all your dear ones within the Divine-Life radius.

No one is perfect; no one is "God-like" by nature, but the transformation of our inner man begins with worship, with acknowledging God as Lord.  We become like whatever we worship -- that is why the worship of idols will eventually destroy us from the inside.  Those who worship the god of war become war-like; those who worship the god of wine become drunk and confused.  That is why it is so important to know Who God Is -- because in communion with Him, His Spirit passes into us, and changes us forever.  As Oswald Chambers has said, "The expression of Christian character is not good doing, but God-likeness.  God's life in us expresses itself as God's life, not as human life trying to be godly." [My Utmost for His Highest]

During the Babylonian captivity, the Jews came to know that it was not the Temple (which had been destroyed) that was the meeting place of God with man, but their own souls.  The Temple, the church, is where those who have met God within themselves go to celebrate and to share the overflow of that Divine Energy -- much as a couple in love go to church to celebrate their love with friends and family, to witness to the world around them the love that has transformed them into a 'new creation.'  And in their 'sacred space,' in the radius of their mutual love, we are all transformed for that moment into people of love and hope.