on sacred space(s) (or when God leaves the building)
when I was in high school I was always fond of driving somewhere to sit and read my Bible in the morning. A lot could be said about how legalistic I was then and how I genuinely believed that level of my discipleship was proportionate to how long said "quiet time" was.
fortunately, nature has little perception of motive, and I found myself routinely staring at yet another sunrise from my 1985 Jeep Cherokee, scarfing down a Chick-fil-A biscuit as I opened my duct-taped Bible, which is sort of a portable white-washed tomb for a High-School Pharisee.
Every day I felt that I met something of the Divine in the sunrise. Frequently I drove to my church and parked in an obscure parking lot overlooking the ballfield--right where the sun was brightest. In the fall I could drive to a near-by park where we used to walk a trail down to throw rocks at the train cars after Sunday night church. The colors were lush, and in their death seemed to speak more verdantly of life then the spring.
By the time I went to college it was clear that I would have to stake out new territory. Berry College is still the largest college campus in the world with well over 10,000 acres. Even though I went to Shorter College, and Berry was a bitter rival, the campus held more of Creation than the ark. (There's a long-standing joke that there are more deer than students at Berry, which is cruel, but wholly accurate).
On the "Mountain Campus" down a three-mile paved road the only police to stop speeding were the frolicking deer which are prone to colliding with your car at any given second. Perched atop a quiet hill was a small building called Frost Chapel. Everyone knew about Frost. There was a deep and abiding sense of the holy in that place. Even though everyone knew about it, I only found another person there once--it was my own private place to read, sing, play my guitar and reflect. I can't think of it without feeling a deep sense of nostalgia. The above picture is the wall-paper on my cell-phone, just to remind me of the times when I felt the presence of God in that place.
After college I headed to Texas, I thought, for seminary. More could be said about that too, but suffice it to say that I was miserable. My oasis in the spiritual desert was a cross-shaped Baptist church that looked mroe like an Episcopal cathedral than the brick-Georgian buildings I'd grew up calling "sanctuaries". I longed for Sundays. I couldn't wait to enjoy the full-ness of worship in that space. The pastor at the time later told me that when he was called there he asked a prestigious former pastor of that church why he went there and was shocked when he said "I took it for the room." It seems shallow at first but once you sit in it, light beaming through stained glass, choir singing "Alleluia", bread and wine broken and passed between homeless men and PhD's--there aren't words to describe it.
And today I sit typing this blog from the "computer lab" of the seminary I attended. Jen and I are at a preview weekend as she prayerfully considers pursuing all that God's doing in her life (and ours). To be frank, there's not much attractive here. No stained-glass windows or ancient wooden timbers, though the Dean says there are plans in the works.. No remote hill-top locations that make me want to talk to birds and creatures like St. Francis.
Just cinder-blocks and concrete, a few bricks and geometric patterns. The "chapel" space looks ostensibly like a spaceship from afar, just waiting for the right "movement of the Spirit" to beam us all to somewhere far, far away. There is very little here that is aesthetically pleasing at all, and yet I'm flooded with the same emotions I feel when I glance at my cell-phone or here the word "Texas".
The scandal of the cross is that God in Christ left the building. Veils were torn, foundations were shaken--all because the Holy now invaded the hearts of all humanity. And still I find myself looking to the sacred space(s) to kindle it once more--to ignite some sense of passion, urgency, and calling to remind me that I am a Temple.
There's a wonderful, eclectic sanctuary in San Francisco that I read about a few years ago. When we went to California on vacation, I desperately wanted to visit the church. St. Gregory of Nyssa's church has a simple quote over it's door--"All that is prays to You."
And that simple thought is coming in and going forth, invocation and benediction, invitation and commissioning.
May our sacred spaces remind us that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
Amen.
