Making Space for the Sacred

It's the end of a long and very non-spiritual week. (I guess we're supposed to think of Sunday as the beginning of the new week, but I would dare say most of us probably pair them up together as the "weekend.") Really, the past three weeks have been very spiritually dry, crammed with work, chores, and errands, and not enough sleep.

Today I received the packet for my Easter e-course at Abbey of the Arts--I've been so excited about this--and perhaps the most emphasized suggestion for this week is that we schedule time in our lives during this virtual retreat for reflection and prayer.

I don't disagree in the least, but this is a very challenging thing for me. First and foremost, I'm naturally disorganized and am not good at scheduling personal time. I've always wanted to be the sort of person who does laundry on Monday, dusting on Tuesday, etc., but I have not been very successful. (I'm working on it. But very slowly.) Second, I have two very young children. Even if I were a Monday-laundry sort of person, I would probably be falling behind at this time in my life.

Third, we live in an era when personal time is very, very short, and often fragmented, and fraught with distractions. I don't think we should get too sunny about past times in this regard: people worked damn hard, and their lives were often filled with chores and long days of unrelenting drudgery. But I do think they had a certain amount of free time built into their lives due to seasons, poorer evening lighting, a lack of constant communication (e.g. no cell phones), etc. It may be much more challenging to resist spontaneous and insistent demands on our attention today.

Fourth, we also live in an era where spiritual practice, despite getting a lot of lip service, is often devalued in practice. I suspect that most people, if you were to tell them you're a regular church-goer or that you're setting aside time to pray, might put you down as a goody-goody. I still feel an echo of this myself. Weirdly, my experience of church and worship has been entirely separate from the reflexive connotations I attach those same words.

In my own life I prioritize social events as much as possible. We've spent the past dozen years moving around a good amount, and so we haven't had the chance to sink deep roots in any one area. I really want to form and maintain closer friendships. But when I didn't attend my usual service on Easter so that we could see friends, I regretted it. I enjoyed seeing our friends, but missing out on celebrating that high holy day with the church friends I'm coming to know was surprisingly hard.

So this past weekend, when a friend had to cancel Saturday plans and asked to reschedule at 11 a.m. on Sunday, I dithered. What should I do? Then I thought about Easter and Christine's request for us to set aside personal time for devotion and I thought, okay. I have to make this time sacred to me.

And that's when it hit me. Make this time sacred?! By its very definition, it is sacred time--or, at least, it should be. Yet somehow, along the line, the expression--to make a time sacred--has become secularized and made shallow.

I cannot be a monk right now, or even an oblate. I probably won't be able to set aside as much time as I would like during this course to really worship. But what I can do is try, as much as possible, to reconnect with true sacred time. Sacred cannot mean simply "set aside for some secular purpose" but a real attempt to take oneself out of secular time as much as possible, in order to attune to deeper concerns.

I think this attempt to reach sacred time is best attached to sacred space, in the literal sense. Christine talks about this as well. She mentions creating an altar with an object for each of the four directions. This interests me because most pagans have a very similar altar in their homes, and most pagan rituals involve the creation of sacred space (usually the drawing of a circle). The space is felt to offer protection and sanctuary, but it is also meant to create a space outside of normal time and place. To approach this from the Christian perspective makes it fresh and new for me. I think of this effort as somehow trying to create a cathedral or labyrinth in your home. The creation of this sacred space will have to spring mostly from the mind and emotions, as I haven't got the time, square footage, or money to put in fan vaults or pews. Will I be able to create sacredness even in the middle of piles of laundry, or will I find myself needing at least a clean room? How does one cultivate the ability to shift perspective to sacredness in the midst of everyday life?

Unfortunately, I don't know if I will be able to follow her other major recommendation, which is to honor the element of air by praying just after rising, facing the east. Mornings are one of our most rushed times of the day, when it's really not possible to get time to myself. It doesn't help that--I'll admit it--I am really really not a morning person, especially since I've been sleep-deprived for three years now. But I know that there is one simple and very secular thing I can do to try to make some morning space: prepare my son's lunch ahead of time. So I'll do this tonight and try to make this a regular habit. (I ought to anyway.)

By the way: I did tell that friend that I wasn't available during most of Sunday morning, though I didn't say why (mostly because it felt like a private matter). I can't tell if I've offended her, and I worry that I have--a bit of a long story, there. But I think I did the right thing, and I was so glad to be back at home in my regular 11 a.m. service today.

Making sacred time sacred: a radical concept--for me, anyway.