Longing To Reach Home

Part of what attracts me to the writing of C.S. Lewis is the transparency with which he writes. He was a person of immense intellect, but also, immense emotion. He shared these emotions in his writings and prompted his readers to experience similar sentiments. His awe inspiring book, Til We Have Faces, was published in 1956. Towards the end of the book we read these words.

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.”

Lewis is expressing his own emotions through the longings of a character he has created for the story. He willingly shares his journey of discovery and the longing that is there in his soul. Perhaps this is what separates the poet from the ordinary person: a willingness to be vulnerable and express emotions, longings, joys, and embarrassments in their own words. In these particular words, Lewis shares that all of his life has been a quest for home and that he will never be truly home until he has left the place that has substituted for home.

I can relate that I have sensed such emotions as well. I have longed for something more than the experiences of this earth. I have recognized that there must be more. I suspect that this might be true for many others even if the sensation has not yet risen to the surface. We long for another place; a better place; a far away country. See if Lewis' emotions stir similar emotions in you. Perhaps today is the day to set your eyes upon the far away country, to set your eyes upon hope.

Sacred Spaces Followup

A few days ago I wrote about sacred spaces and challenged us to create our own. Now I would like to ask you to tell me about your sacred spaces. Where do you go to be creative? Where do you go to unplug? Some write songs or solve problems in the shower. For others their creative space is in the car while they drive. Still others find solice and sanctity on a mountain-top? Take the time to send me a comment in the space below.

"Creative Arts raise a person to another level of consciousness as if you could imagine life before words." — Charlie Haden

Guarding Sacred Spaces

What are the sacred spaces of our time? At one time it was only God's Tabernacle or His Temple in Jerusalem that were considered holy. God used to rage against the Israelite people for going to other sacred spaces. Back then, people saw every high place or wooded grove as a potential sacred space to whatever god it might be dedicated. God drew his people to worship him in appropriate places and in appropriate ways. Eventually churches and cathedrals became the sacred spaces of choice. Oh there was still the occasional holy moment celebrated on a mountain-top; but everyone knew that the only real place to meet God was in a church building. So people built churches and they proliferated throughout our cities. Municipal planners left room for them in their community designs and people attended them. Today it is a rare thing to see the construction of a new church building.

Today, it seems there are no sacred spaces left. All have become secular and stripped of spiritual meaning. Even places that were once dedicated to God have become community halls or condos with only a facade left to give an impression of past glory. We have declared that nothing is holy. Annie Dillard says, "We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it." [1]

We wonder why we feel so scattered. We wonder if we will ever again feel together and holistic. Our spaces are a constant barrage of email, internet, social networking, twitter, mobile phones, satellite radios, iPods, and every other imaginable distraction. Nothing is sacred.

"Despite the incredible power and potential of sacred spaces, they are quickly becoming extinct. We are depriving ourselves of every opportunity for disconnection. And our imaginations suffer the consequences." Scott Belsky[2]

It is time for a revolution. It is time to take back some sacred space. It is time that we drew a circle around some spaces and declared them holy. Standing within these circles we will stare technology in the eye and, like Gandalf facing a Balrog, declare, "Go back to the shadow. You cannot pass!"

Without sacred spaces we shall surely perish. Without places of imagination free from interruption our culture will wither on the vine. We must be proactive in creating sacred spaces for ourselves. When we find ourselves in places of disconnection we must guard them jealously and use them wisely. Unplug, disconnect, worship, let creativity flow, and seize the space.

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[1] http://hungerandthirst4.blogspot.com/2011/09/hearing.html

[2] http://the99percent.com/articles/6947/What-Happened-to-Downtime-The-Extinction-of-Deep-Thinking-Sacred-Space

Thin Places

The concept of "Thin Places" fascinates me. The definition of a "thin place" is "a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. It’s a place where we can sense the divine more readily."* This was an important concept to Celtic Christians. For the Roman church, the place to meet God was, and is, in a church building or a cathedral. To the Celts, the place to meet God was at a thin place. Such places were most often outdoors and defined by islands, mountains, points of land that thrust out into the sea, caves, or other natural landmarks.

The concept fascinates me and unnerves me at the same time. It is not something of which the bible explicitly speaks and yet it seems that the concept is there and that several people in the bible had their own thin places. If you think of Mount Sinai, Mount Carmel, Jacob and his ladder, and Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane you will get a picture of what I mean. Perhaps it is not that the places have particular significance but that the places come to have special relevance for a person or for people in general.

I have a few places where God has spoken in unique ways. These are places where His voice was a little more clear and He has spoken more often. They are places to which I return to hear from Him again. It is not that He always speaks at such places; for He can be just as silent in such places as any other. It is not that these are the only places where one can hear from God. They are, however, places to which I return with increased expectancy and with an increased desire to listen. Perhaps that is the purpose of this metaphor in my life. Mark D. Roberts has this to say about the concept.

If you want to use the thin place metaphor, then you might want to say that the purpose of thin places is to help us realize that all places can be thin. Or, better yet, perhaps the purpose of a thin place is to train us to make the other places in our lives thinner. Moreover, when we realize that the Spirit of God dwells within us, we will come to believe that we are called to be thin places, as God makes his presence known through us.*

May you seek places in your life where you might find a greater depth of connection with God. May there be enough thin places in all of our lives to spur us on to love and good deeds.

* For some helpful theological reflection on the concept of "thin places" see Mark D. Roberts Blog series on the topic. This is where I found this particular definition. http://www.markdroberts.com/htmfiles/resources/thinplaces.htm