On Holy Ground Today

I notice that we tend to project a certain aura upon places where we have experienced unique encounters. Some places become holy places for me because of what I have experienced there: A monastery in New Mexico . . . an island off the British Columbia coast . . . the bird-feeders in my back yard . . . a hiking trail in Nova Scotia . . . a quiet corner at a local retreat center.

If I'm not careful, I'll attribute to these places a mystique that is peculiar to them above other places.

If you press me, though, and ask, "How do you know these places are holy?" I would answer something like this: "I know these places are holy because all places are holy!"

I wouldn't have given that answer a few years back. For 16 years as a senior pastor I was highly invested in whether or not people showed up at a particular location for worship on Sundays. I was highly invested in that location because I preached sermons there week in and week out . . . my average prep time for a Sunday morning sermon was about 20 hours, so I figured people needed to show up and hear my erudite expositions on Holy Scripture and life.

Ha! Most often folks were at the golf course, or on a boat at the lake, or sitting in a deer stand somewhere . . . worst of all, sleeping late when they could have been listening to me!!

The excuses I heard from these folks -- backsliders, no doubt!! -- were generally not very creative. Occasionally someone would volunteer an explanation like, "Pastor, I can worship God as well on a golf course/lake/deer stand/duck blind/fill-in-the-blank as I can in the church building."

"Oh really? How did worship go for you as you stood over that 12 foot putt on the 18th hole, trying to break 100 for the first time?"

"How did worship work for you as you sat shivering in a deer stand at 6:30 a.m. wondering if your toes were still attached?"

I really didn't say those things in reply. But to those who insisted they could worship somewhere else just as well as they did in the brick and mortar we called the "Church," I did want to ask, "Did you?" "Did you worship God as you hit that 5-iron?" "Did you worship God as you skied across Lake Houston?"

This morning I've gone back to re-read Meister Eckhart, a 13th century Christian mystic, who reminds me that the person connected to God carries holiness with her or him wherever they go. Yes, all places are holy because they are created by God, sustained by God, and mirror God's generosity.

Beyond that, though, there is this idea that as humans intimately connected to God -- as bearers of God -- the places we go are hallowed by the God within us. God is no more present in the Chapel or the cathedral than on the lake or in the countryside as we live there mindful of the One who energizes and animates all things.

This is a small sample from Eckhart:

Whoever really and truly has God, this one has God everywhere, in the street and in company with everyone, just as much as in church or in solitary places or in [the prayer] cell. . . . That person carries God in his/her every work and in every place and it is God alone who performs all the person's works. (Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, trans. by Edmund Colledge and Bernard McGinn, p. 251-52)