Sacred Spaces & Sacred Places

A few months ago I was talking with a friend about "Thin Places". A little while later they sent me the following by John Crossley Morgan.

"I was taking a morning walk down a path outside the Tintern Abbey in Wales when I discovered a rather small but sprawling tree, its branches beckoning to travellers who might rest under its shelter. I crawled under the branches and sat quietly to watch the morning sun break across the ancient abbey sky. It felt safe and even sacred there, a place you might go to rest and reflect on the mystery of life. I sensed the presence of others who had sat in that spot before.

Later over lunch I spoke with a local resident and told him how I had felt sitting under that tree. He looked at me and said quietly, “it’s called a thin place.” I had never heard the name before, so he patiently explained that to the Welsh a thin place is a very special place, a sacred spot, where you feel a presence so deep and mysterious that you have to stretch language to describe it. “That sounds like what inspires poetry.” I laughed. “Maybe that’s why the Welsh are such poets,” he said.

In the months that followed, I became more aware of “thin places” in my life, whether in my backyard garden or by a river. I came to understand that once you feel the power of thin places you tend to experience them often, in places you might have missed before. More surprisingly, I learned that when you carry a thin place in your mind and heart, you can go there wherever you feel the need. I did so not long ago before I was wheeled into surgery - scenes of a Welsh countryside before me rather than the white gowns of nurses and doctors.

Now I carry with me the idea of a thin - place where the veil separating this reality from another is temporarily lifted, so faith and imagination can catch a fleeting glimpse."

I thought it was beautiful and it got me thinking and feeling many things, many things that keep on returning...

A few months later, this Monday to be precise, I woke up with the question “What is sacred?” I have no idea why it was there that morning all I know is that it was all over me as I stepped into the day and I began the process of preparing myself to prepare the worship for Sunday.

I did what I always do each week. I posted the idea on facebook and waited to see if anyone would respond with thoughts. I then began to look for appropriate material, for readings etc. As the day progressed ideas began to form and formulate within me. The thoughts took me on a journey more towards places and spaces than general ideas about sacredness...as always it was an interesting journey.

The next morning after enjoying coffee with my usual Tuesday morning friends I walked up towards Dunham Road Chapel where I live to continue my work. As I approached the chapel I smiled as I read the banner marking 200 years of Unitarians in Altrincham. Ok we’ve not always worshipped in this building for two hundred years, but the sacred space has existed that long. There has been a community dedicated to free religious expression in Altrincham for 200 hundred years. A place where people can congregate and worship together unconstrained by creed and dogma. It is indeed a special place, a sacred place, I am coming to truly understand and appreciate this.

I sometimes like to go into the chapel and sit in different parts of it; I sometimes like to walk around it too and look at the many and varied aspects of the inside. Dunham Road Chapel has a Tardis quality about. It doesn't look much from the outside and yet when you walk inside it seems to grow in both size and beauty, it is an awesome space and place. I know it will take many years to fully know the place. I love the gardens too and often just like to stand in various spots there. I have recently developed affection for the rose trees, especially those one or two yellow winter roses that I have seen these last few weeks; I’ve been carrying a vision of those around with me these last few weeks.

Now I know Dunham Road is not one of those Celtic “Thin places” that John Crossley Morgan described above, at least not in the traditional sense and yet somehow it is. I completely connect with him when he writes “I came to understand that once you feel the power of thin places you tend to experience them often, in places you might have missed before. More surprisingly, I learned that when you carry a thin place in your mind and heart, you can go there wherever you feel the need. I did so not long ago before I was wheeled into surgery - scenes of a Welsh countryside before me rather than the white gowns of nurses and doctors.”

I carried the image of those yellow roses with me as I carried my grand dad’s coffin and spoke about his life, at his funeral a week last Thursday. It was a "thick" and deeply felt time. In that time and space I felt held by a greater reality as I have at other moments in my life, especially when I have needed it the most. There was an absolute sense of being at one with all time and space as the sacredness of the space held me in my grief. I have also felt it as the week has unfolded and I have spent time with family as we have come to terms with the loss of my step brother, our Allen. I don’t always feel this held, this connected, but then thankfully I don’t always need to.

I was recently sent the following poem "How to be poet" by Wendell Berry

“How To Be a Poet” by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

The poem is a reminder to Wendell Berry himself on how to truly be a poet. There is much in it that speaks to me as a creator of material for worship and to some extent a writer. I could write so much about but this blog is already longer than perhaps it ought to be, so instead I will discuss just three lines at the end of the second verse. These read:

“There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.”

In the poem he is speaking specifically of the space where he writes and the need to keep it pure. He seems to especially have a distrust of technology. Now I’m sure Wendell Berry would disapprove of the space that I sit and write at. I have wires and books and all sorts of papers piled up. I communicate through modern media all the time I am working and yet whatever needs to come through makes its journey there. It is most definitely not a desecrated place.

I do agree with Wendell Berry in his view that there are no unsacred places, everywhere is sacred although there are places that have from time to time become desecrated, by humanities inhumanity to humanity. This was very much on my mind last Monday, as I pondered what is sacred and what is profane in our world, on what was “Holocaust Remembrance Day”. I paused long and hard as I considered the places where inhumanity reighns. I also looked into my own heart and thought of the times I have failed to love and been overcome with hate. How many of us can truly say they have always honoured the sacredness of life and never desecrated anything or anyone, including ourselves?

All life is sacred every single aspect, even the things we don’t want and like; all life is sacred I have no doubt about that. All spaces are sacred too. That said there are still places and moments that touch us in much deeper ways. The Celts called them “Thin Places” and it seems they can be found anywhere and everywhere. And as I learnt again last week we can carry them with us when life gets a little too difficult.

Now while I do believe that everywhere is sacred I still find something extra-specially sacred about Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham and Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston,  especially during times of worship. So much of what I am and do is focused on what occurs at those places during specific times in the week. This time I share with the people I serve have become what I like to call “Thick Time” in  “Thin Places”. They have become a sacred times in sacred places. I see a growing purpose in the worship I share with the people I serve. I take it very seriously, although with some humour. There is nothing more serious than humour. I’ve been thinking a lot these last few months about the worship I share and how it is created. I have written before about the process, but really it’s beyond words. You can only stretch words so far.

Last September I attended a workshop led by the inspirational Unitarian Universalist Minister Mark Belletini. It was advertised as a workshop on preaching, but that was only a small part of it. It was really about creating worship in a free religious tradition. Mark shared his own personal experiences, which are vast as well as discussing what he saw as the purpose of worship. It really got me thinking about what I create and share and its purpose. More and more I see it as a sacred time in a sacred space, I see it as “thick time” in “thin places”.

A few weeks after Mark’s workshop I was reading The Unitarian magazine, particularly the editorial by Yvonne Abburrow that talked about the moments before worship begins. She talked of the need to make this time a holy time and the need to invoke “The Divine” to be present with us before worship began, it chimed very much with what I had come back from the workshop thinking. I had only a couple of Sunday’s before began to ask those I lead in worship to still themselves in silence and to "invite a loving presence to be here amongst us and to awaken within us". This was before the lighting of the chalice. It seemed important to separate that time from the ordinary and everyday; it seemed important to create time and space for worship. My intention was to create “thick” moments in these sacred times and spaces; my intention was to create “thick time” in these “thin places”

Now of course it has not been my intention to totally separate this time from the rest of time. I always end worship with a variation on the same theme with the blessings asking the congregation to take with them what we have experienced in our time together “in all that we feel, all that we think, all that we say and all that we do.” The intention is to carry the spirit that touches us in this hour out into the world in which we live; the intention is to bless the places and hearts we touch, with the light of our time together.

The congregations gather together each Sunday seeking something. They come for a reason, even if are not wholly sure what that reason is. Each week in the worship we share together I attempt to create through words, music, silence, imagery and more a sacred time and space that will enable us to open our hearts and help us connect to the Greater Mysteries of Life, to the Web of Being to know the Spirit of Life and Love, to experience God and for this to impact on how we live our day to day lives.

In these sacred spaces at these sacred times where generations have worshipped I hope our hearts are opened and our souls are touched. That we connect to that Greater Reality and that we leave these sacred spaces carrying with us at least the hope that we can make our lives and the lives of those we touch a little more sacred.

Finally I'd like to end this little "blogspot with some words by Tom Barrett “What’s in the Temple?”

"What's In The Temple?"

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.
It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.
The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.
The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.
The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.
If she stands still it will catch up with her.
Pause with us here a while.
Put your ear to the wall of your heart.
Listen for the whisper of knowing there.
Love will touch you if you are very still.

If I say the word God, people run away.
They've been frightened--sat on 'till the spirit cried "uncle."
Now they play hide and seek with somebody they can't name.
They know he's out there looking for them, and they want to be found,
But there is all this stuff in the way.

I can't talk about God and make any sense,
And I can't not talk about God and make any sense.
So we talk about the weather, and we are talking about God.

I miss the old temples where you could hang out with God.
Still, we have pet pounds where you can feel love draped in warm fur,
and sense the whole tragedy of life and death.
You see there the consequences of carelessness,
And you feel there the yapping urgency of life that wants to be lived.
The only things lacking are the frankincense and myrrh.

We don't build many temples anymore.
Maybe we learned that the sacred can't be contained.
Or maybe it can't be sustained inside a building.
Buildings crumble.
It's the spirit that lives on.

If you had a temple in the secret spaces of your heart,
What would you worship there?
What would you bring to sacrifice?
What would be behind the curtain in the holy of holies?

Go there now.

by Tom Barrett

Home is where the heart

“Roots hold me close; wings set me free;

Spirit of Life, come to me, come to me”

When I look at myself, when I really look at myself, I know that while I’m very comfortable with the concept of wings setting me free I am far less comfortable with the idea of roots holding me close. I’ve been thinking about this the last few days. I have always struggled with roots, especially the kind that hold you real close.

I’ve always been a bit of a nomad, a wanderer, a traveller. I have never really settled anywhere. I have lived in my current home in Altrincham for about two and a half years now and it is as long as I have lived anywhere. Even as a child this was the case, we were always on the move. A bit of a butterfly you might say, just floating from flower to flower, but never staying anywhere for very long, never really nesting.

My dad always said there was Romany (Roma) blood in us. I know that he had this romantic view of himself and he certainly had a love of this lifestyle and I can see traces of this in me. Not the love for horses and horse folk, but certainly the nomad, the traveller, the fear of taking root somewhere.

I always remember the story he use to tell of why travellers were always on the move. He says that it was a traveller who hammered in the nails into Jesus’ hands and feet as he was crucified, but for some reason he only used three nails instead of four; a nail in each hand but one nail through both feet, as they were crossed together. He use to say that this fourth nail was why travellers never settled in one place for very long; this fourth nail was always following behind them catching up with them, a bit like those headlights that keep on following us at night, as we drive in the dark...just like headlights on your tail, headlights on your tail...

My dad on his way to Appleby horse fair

The story is a rather beautiful “mythos”, but a sad one...

I am learning the importance of roots, the importance of place, the importance of home. We all need roots, that hold us close, so that we can spread our wings and truly fly free. We all need a nest to fly back to from time to time otherwise we get lost and lonely on our journeys.

I do feel settled these days among the beautiful communities I serve and belong to.  I’ve certainly learnt a lot from them about place, commitment and community. I have learnt so much about those roots that hold us oh so close, that are so vital if we wish to fully stretch our wings and fly free. I’m very settled in the community in and around Altrincham and in my little house. I’m sure that the way I live would be too basic and perhaps Spartan for most folk, but I feel at home there. It is my little nest, my little home where I can settle down and rest after a day flying around all over the place. I am finally beginning to understand the importance of home, how vital it is to have roots that hold you close and that the “Romany Rye” that my dad use to sing, is not really for me at all.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about "Groundhog Day" and shared the closing words from the final broadcast of weather man Phil (Bill Murray)  near the end of the film. He said:

“When Chechov saw the long winter, it was a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope; and yet we know winter’s only one more step in the cycle. And standing among the people of Punxsutawney basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn’t imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter."

...”Basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts”...those words have stuck with me these last few days. I’ve been thinking about them. It brings to mind a true image of home. It is a loving image, a comforting image and one I am growing to appreciate.

Home is where your heart is and it is also where your hearth is. Yvonne Aburrow (Editor of the Unitarian) recently told me that the ancient Romans “viewed the hearth as the centre or focus of the home. It was where the family offerings to the family gods were made.”...she went on to say...”I think a room is incomplete without a hearth or an altar to focus it and in some rooms, the TV is the focus instead of the hearth-fire.”

I wonder what the main focus of people's homes are...the focus of my home and my life is so many ways is my laptop...

Home is where the heart and where your hearth is, even if that is a laptop. And as they say there is no place like home. When I think of the nomad, the traveller who wants their wings set free, but without the roots to hold them close, I always return to Dorothy and “The Wizard of Oz”. In the film she begins by singing of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” a place away from the drudgery, of the mundainity, of life where wings could set her free, but at the end she clicks those ruby slippers and says those immortal words. "There's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like"

“There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” Dorothy has been on a spiritual journey and encountered all manner of fascinating friends along the way. She has also fought off enemies who wanted to destroy her. She has experienced and learnt so much, but in the end she just wants to return home. She needs those roots to hold her close, because her wings have become tired.

For many home is the embodiment of safety and acceptance, the heart and the hearth of a loving family. Robert Frost wrote that “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in." Sadly this is not the case for everyone, for many people home and family is not a place of safety at all. In fact it is a place of struggle and suffering.

Home is a tiny word but a powerful one and one so rich in meaning. It is a word that can hold such dreams of possibilities or nightmares of hurt. It is more than a physical place it is an idea, a feeling, a vision. It is something that we carry with us as we journey through life; it is not just something that we seek. For some it is a place that they are fleeing from, a place of repression and not a place of loving possibility.

Shelter is of course a basic human need. Something that people are seemingly increasingly being denied, homelessness is once again on the increase in this country. Some estimates claim that as many as 1 million people live without a permanent residence. To have somewhere to lay your head at night is a basic human need. We all need a place to cook, to eat to care for each other and yet increasingly people are finding themselves devoid of this basic need.

That said “home” is more than a physical place, you do not need to be physically homeless to experience a sense of homelessness. When Dorothy says “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home”, she is longing.

I suspect that it is the tension between the roots that we need to hold us close and those wings that we wish to spread to set us free that drive us to find true home. We all need connection and we all need freedom, our souls cry out for both. A true home offers this. The true home, the ideal home offers us the promise of wholeness; it offers both solitude and connection. A place where we can warm ourselves by hearth and hearts can dream of what they truly desire. Home is where the heart and the hearth is.

A sense of belonging is vital to a happy and healthy life. We need roots that can hold us close so that when we fly off on our next adventure we can spread our wings and fly free. To me this is the purpose of free religious communities like the two I serve. To me this is the purpose of true religion; a place where no one need be alone; a place that anyone can call home; a place that binds up the whole and the broken; a place that brings glad tidings; a place that offers space to spread your wings; a place where you can fly free. At the beginning of the “Wizard of Oz”, while she was still in Kansas, Dorothy sings of a place where “the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true”. To me this is the purpose of spiritual community, a place where such dreams can come true.

I know I’ve found a home among the beautiful people of Altrincham and Urmston and I offer thanks and praise for this. I believe that it is the task of communities like these to be places of open hearts and hearths so that people can truly feel at home there. As I look forward I believe it is our task is to create together  a place where the roots are stretched out far and wide and people can be held close so that they can spread out their wings and be set free...