The Sacred Here and Now

Several moths ago, I introduced you to an elephant. I spoke to you about a systematic approach to our traditional Unitarian Universalist beliefs developed by my colleague, the Reverend Roy Phillips. Roy calls this interconnected web of values, "Our Way of The Spirit." This way consists of eight values: the divine seed in every person, mutuality, emergence, acknowledging the negative, mystery, variety, on-going revelation, and the sacred in the here and now. I’ve presented these themes in a series of sermons over the past year and today’s sermon is the last in the series. (Titles and links for the others in this series are given below.)

Today I'm going to explore the idea of the sacred in the here and now. The word sacred often brings to mind a dualistic way of thinking about life and human that most of us no longer subscribe to. Usually the idea of the sacred is linked with the notion that creation is divided; one part belonging to God and heaven, the other belonging to humanity and the lower realms. Traditionally, the part belonging to God is characterized by visions of purity, goodness, truth, and the timelessness of eternity. The part belonging to humanity is depicted as dirty, contaminated by sin, transient, and ultimately of no value.

For those who see creation and our brief time on this earth through this dualistic lens, life is a trial and the world is a place of suffering and tears. If we have lived according to the rules – if we make the grade –, a better place awaits us in the next life and getting to that "better place" is the goal of this life.

Many of us find the hope for something better later on problematical because it discounts the joy and beauty, the meaning and truth that we experience in our daily lives. We may have a sense that there is something good beyond this world, but most of us don’t make our life choices based on and expectation of an eternal life in the company of God and the heavenly host.

We also reject the idea that only a few designated places can be called "sacred space" and only certain days or hours are sacred time, or that only some people do "sacred work." We see the world through a different lens, a lens that makes the sacred more accessible and more active, more present in our day-to-day existence.

By now some of you are probably wondering what I mean when I use the word "sacred." Let me give you a series of ideas to play with.

The sacred is non-rational. We don’t come to experience the sacred in life by sitting down and thinking about it. As one writer says, the sacred is not a matter of theoretical speculation. Instead it is a primordial experience, a primary religious experience that is visceral, immediate. An encounter with the sacred is often disorienting–what is commonplace, even dull, begins to shine and take on new meaning. Connecting with the sacred reveals the "really real" as opposed to the false or meaningless in the world. It is the breaking through of something eternal and transcendent into the ordinary, which reveals the center of the world and all life.

The potential for the experience of the sacred is universal. You don’t have to believe in a deity of any kind to connect with what is awesome and "real" in life. The Buddhist emphasis on mindfulness and piercing through our attachments to the transient things in life describes a practice that has the potential to lead us to an encounter with the sacred without reference to a divine being.

But a disciplined practice is not required nor is it a guarantee that we will find the sacred in the here and now. Mircea Eliade tells us that the religious impulse is universal and that even the majority of irreligious people still have "religious" needs and have "religious" experiences of coming into the presence of something bigger than one’s self, something powerful, endlessly creative, and immensely beautiful and VERY BIG – something that inspires a deep gratitude and profound sense of being alive. As Sir Arthur Eddington a British Theoretical Astronomer said,

"Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science of in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead and the purpose surging in our natures responds."

To repeat what I said earlier, many religions divide the world into two categories, the sacred and the profane. Most of life falls into the dustbin of the profane. The sacred, the depths of meaning are approached in highly controlled and scripted circumstances. Buildings used for worship often have a place that is designated as the "Holy of Holies" which is off limits to the laity. Only the consecrated can offer the sacraments or read the scriptures or perform the rituals that provide a gateway to the sacred.

But in every religious tradition there have been individuals and even whole communities who believed that the sacred was present in the everyday world. For them, and for us, the natural world and the routines of daily life are filled with the potential of astonishing experiences that can touch and alter the deepest levels of our being. Evelyn Underhill, poet, novelist, and a writer on the mystical describes thees experience in these words:

"Has it never happened to you to lose yourself for a moment in a swift and satisfying experience for which you found no name? When the world took on strangeness, and you rushed out to meet it, in a mood at once exultant and ashamed? Was there not an instant when you took the lady who now orders your dinner into your arms, and she suddenly interpreted to you the whole of the universe? A universe so great, charged with so terrible and intensity that you have hardly dared to think of it since? Do you remember that horrid moment at the concert, when you became wholly unaware of your comfortable seven and sixpenny seat? Those were onsets of involuntary contemplation; Sudden partings of the conceptual veil. Dare you call them the least significant moments of your life?"

These "swift and satisfying" and "nameless" experiences that Underhill describes are fine examples of the encounter with the sacred in the here and now of ordinary life. They seem to happen without effort or planning, in ordinary circumstances and everyday people.

Gunilla Norris, author of Being Home and a psychotherapist shares some of her encounters with the sacred in the here an now through her prayerful meditations on ordinary household chores. In her introduction to this book she says that she is deliberately orienting herself to be more open to "Mystery’s way within." She adds,

"I don’t think we can go deeply into ourselves, but Life seeking itself can go deeply in us. We can be infused, loved, and fathomed by it."

Allowing Life to go deeply into us means allowing the beauty of the ordinary, the deeper meaning behind the mundane tasks of life to take hold of us. She tells of a client who found healing as she encountered the sacred in the here-and-now of her garden. This woman arrived for her appointment with eyes shining and she said,

"Gunilla, today I can die. For one half hour I have lived. I gardened. The dirt, the trowel, the plants, the sky, the sun, the water – it was all inside of me. I’ve really gardened. I can die. Now I can die."

Norris comments,

"To garden, to do the dishes, to make the bed, to sweep. To be here, to do what must be done, to really be with the Great Love whose life we are, we can die then; at any moment we can die and we can live the wonder of a new day."

If the idea of the Great Love doesn’t speak to your condition, as the Quakers would say, then I’d urge you to remember the Buddhist teaching that every task is an opportunity for mindfulness, even washing the dishes and sorting the laundry.

Now it’s my guess that given a choice, most of you would say that an encounter with the sacred is much more likely to happen outdoors rather than the laundry room. Emerson saw nature as a gateway to the sacred and said that

"the happiest man is he who learns from nature the lessons of worship."

It is in nature, not the church, or the catechism class that we encounter the "apparition of God." Nature, says Emerson, is the organ through which the universal sprit speaks to the individual and strives to lead the individual back to it.

This doesn’t seem to be a particularly remarkable statement now, but in Emerson’s day it was a pretty radical idea. Wilderness was still seen as dangerous and the duty of humankind was to tame wilderness. But Emerson, Thoreau, and others in the Transcendentalist movement saw an intrinsic value in the immediacy of nature and in the individuality of the human soul, and we value them still today.

These values were confirmed to me last Tuesday evening when 25 friends and members of the Fellowship gathered in this room to talk about our Sunday services. We began by talking about what our time together on Sunday was about – what people were seeking, what fed the needs that they brought to this place. As I re-read and reflected on the ideas that came out of our two-hour meeting, I realized that what many people are longing for is a greater sense of the sacred here and now in our Sunday services.

There is a desire for more beauty that appeals to the senses as well as to the mind. Some people want to see more opportunities to connect with one another, and this desire for connection includes the children. Some suggestions included arranging the chairs so that members of the congregation can see one another better and be more aware of each other. Now that we have a more even attendance at our two services, this may well be possible. Another suggestion is that we have shorter, simpler services with more time for discussion.

Several people expressed a desire to have the sharing of joys and concerns while the children were still present so that they could participate in this ritual. There was a general sense that our services could include more celebration of life and expressions of gratitude for the gifts of life. We also discussed how we might re-claim and explore the concept of God, acknowledging that this is a rich and complex idea that has been the subject of serious thought by some of the greatest minds of our time. Several people also expressed the hope that we could have more variety in the way Sunday Services are conducted, bringing in new elements from time to time and allowing for flexibility in the order of service. Finally, there was discussion of being less rigid about our ending time — especially if the post-sermon discussion is just getting interesting as the time for the service to end is drawing close.

I am pleased that so many people take our Sunday Services seriously, and I’m aware that there were people who wanted to attend this meeting but couldn’t because of prior commitments. At the end of the meeting, I made a plea that I’ll repeat now: I would love to have a working committee of five to eight people that would meet with me on a regular basis to plan Sunday Services. To have the kind of lively, carefully planned services that were discussed will take more creative energy than one person can generate week after week, I also hope to begin a series of once a month Friday evening services which will be family friendly and more informal than what we offer on Sunday mornings. I would also like to have a committee of four or five people to help me plan these services.

My intention here is not that we’ll be pushed in one direction or another because of the whims and desires of a few people. My intention is to take this precious hour together on Sunday and find ways to create the sort of atmosphere and spirit that will enrich our lives, strengthen our bonds as a community of religious seekers, and nurture the spiritual growth of all who participate with us on Sunday, no matter what their age. My hope is that as we discover how to engage with the sacred in the here and now more fully, and more joyfully in our Sunday Services, that our beloved community will become a more vital source of growth and renew for us, and for the community we touch.

May it be so!

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