Sacred time. Sacred
Space.
Jacob declared of
Bethel, where God renewed the promise he had made to Abraham:
"How awesome
is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate
of heaven."
Perhaps we don’t
appreciate the sacred as much as we should.
Everything and everyplace is so ordinary to us.
One of my
favorite stories is about representatives of the Native American community that
were constantly showing up at hearings and objecting to opening up more forest
land with logging roads.
“This land is
sacred to my people”, they would declare at each and every hearing.
“Is there any
place that is not sacred to you and your people?” one logging company executive
finally replied in exasperation.
“Now, Sir, you
are finally beginning to understand my people”, was the response.
I’m thinking
about the sacred these days.
We have our
sanctuaries. And in time they become
sacred to us. The stairs at the entry are
visibly worn from the flow of people in and out for generations.
When we traveled
to Russia we were able to visit the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Novgorod which
has been a place of worship throughout its 1,000 year history. It is so ancient there are archeological digs
within the sanctuary, revealing the original floor.
As is typical,
the icons painted on the walls follow a progression from the earth below to the
heavens above. One cannot stand in such
a place without having one’s head bend backward as your eyes are drawn up to
the heavenly scenes above.
I think also of the
little Egland Lutheran Church out on the prairie of NE South Dakota, near the
farm of our family.
There,
surrounding the church is the cemetery. There
we laid to rest one family member after another.
Grandma Louise
played organ in that church for decades.
How many times “Holy, Holy, Holy” welcomed people to worship one can
never know, but it’s as though the walls themselves could sing the song.
“This is the gate
of heaven.”
My desk now sits
in our living room, having been moved from its former place as we remodeled my
office to make a bedroom for Dad.
And this morning,
as I write, both Mom and Dad’s ashes are in the urn on my desk, waiting to be
transported back to Kalispell, and then to the cemetery in Polson.
I am anticipating
moving my desk back to where it used to be, and reclaiming that room as my
office.
And yet it has
changed.
It has become a
sacred space, for there, right where my desk will stand, my Father died.
“This is the gate
of heaven.”
There Dad came
face to face with his Savior, and was drawn from this earth into the heavens
above.
And the Divine
light will always cast a shadow on the walls.
Sacred Time. Sacred Space.
The question was
raised about whether we should scatter some of Mom and Dad’s ashes at their
lake place in Elmo, MT. I objected.
My concern is
that the future of the lake place is still up in the air, and should we have to
sell it, it will be much easier if it is not the place where our parent’s ashes
are scattered.
Scattering the
ashes creates a sacred space.
The irony is that
my own home has become such a sacred space.
I anticipate the
move back into that space in our home.
There I will
study the word. Sermons will be
written. And through the Word, Jesus’
face will be revealed.
There in that
space that Dad saw Jesus face to face, I too will encounter my Savior.
There Angels will
ascend and descend on the stairway to heaven, messengers speaking the Divine
Word into our ordinary world.
That place where
I have often wrestled with God through times of depression and despair will now
be a sanctuary.
No, I don’t plan
on erecting an altar there. There are
other places for that.
But I will
remember.
I will remember
that for one brief but shining moment, it was there that my Father saw the face
of God.
I find myself
wondering about the future.
Will one day a
bed be made there again, only this time for me as I take my final breaths on
this earth?
Only time will
tell.
For now the
Sacred will be found in the ordinary.
A few feet away
from that holy space where Dad died, is our dining table.
There we break
bread together.
There we gather
with family and friends.
There we teach
our grandson to pray.
And there amid
all that ordinary stuff, we encounter the hidden God.
And the angels
sing “Holy, Holy, Holy!”
