Journal of Sacred Work

Every sacred place is a place where eternity shines through time.
– Joseph Campbell

   With loving care, a Japanese garden was created several years back as a sacred space on the outskirts of Nashville. It offers its peaceful presence in the middle of a searingly beautiful park called Cheekwood.

   The first time I visited the garden, I paused to read a small sign that recommended traveling the garden path slowly in order to appreciate the many fine details of nature and occasional small sculptures that live along the way. Part way through my journey, I entered a thick stand of bamboo. The stalks swayed in the breeze, tapping each other in rhythmic conversation. Amid the beauty and grace of the garden, something strange happened…

    A family of four, including two children in their early teens, came charging through as if escaping a house fire. One of the teens was running. "Come on," the father shouted to the other teen, "there’s more stuff to see over by the lake."
   On the heels of the family of four was a woman in her twenties talking on a cell phone. "So what did Bobby say?" she shouted into the phone as she walked by me, staring at the ground.
   I don’t know what Bobby said, but it took some effort for me to ease back into the experience of listening to the voice of the garden. What she have to say to me or to anyone who slowed long enough to listen to her songs. Perhaps, more than anything, what she did was help me to hear my own music.

   Yes, it can sound judgmental to criticize others for seeming to ignore the sacred experiences before their eyes. Yet we are all surrounded by noise and distractions and we often create them ourselves.
   A place may be sacred, but for a sacred experience to occur, a dialogue must be opened between the place and the person. And there must be a genuine pause, a silence that allows the sacred to speak to us. Otherwise, the sacred is nothing more than a piece of ground or a pile of stones.
   A Christian may enter a mosque, a Muslim may enter Notre Dame, a Jew may enter a Buddhist Shrine, or a Hindu a synagogue and gather nothing of the sacred that lives there for others. A tourist may stand before the ancient shapes of Stonehenge (click on photo) or the mysterious smile of the Mona Lisa and feel nothing. Each of these encounters will lack the resonance needed for the sacred to shine through unless each person approaches the sacred place of others with special respect and an openness to the universality of God’s beauty.
   An openness and a dialogue is required in order for a vibration with the sacred to occur.
   So long as any caregiver sees the homeless as lazy, bad & troublesome, no love will flow through the encounter. So long as caregivers think of patients as gall bladders or hips or kidneys, instead of whole human beings, the sacred will be blocked off. So long as caregivers scorn patient gowns as signs of lowliness and weakness instead of robes deserving respect, the people wearing them will never receive the healing care they need.

   Fortunately, there are many caregivers across this land who appreciate the gift that care-giving offers. For them, each shift they work is an opportunity to open a sacred dialogue between their hearts and the pain of those for whom they care. These special caregivers understand the whole notion of the sacred because they live it every day. If you introduce them to Stonehenge or to the holy shrine of a different faith, or to a great painting, they can feel the sacred in these things because they know that the sacred is an expression of Love and that Love is universal.

    How does eternity shine through time? It happens millions of times a day, when caregivers open their hearts and let God’s Love travel through them and into the heart of a person in need. And they feel something else, as the Love they give travels back through them and back to them in a sacred circle. Because of this truth, any fluorescent-lit corner of linoleum in a hospital or hospice or other charity can instantly become sacred. Because any place Love finds expression becomes a place where eternity shines through time.