"In silence we must wrap much of our life, because it is too fine for speech." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Where is the house of God? Different religions might seek to answer this differently. I have often heard clerics refer to churches or synagogues or temples as houses of God. Perhaps you will enter one this weekend. When you go, you may ask yourself: Does this feel like a house of God?
I suggest that the house of God exists whenever and wherever we recognize a space as sacred and treat it as such. When we welcome God's Love into our own home, it has become a house of God. A hospital may become a house of God if its occupants are living Love.
Sacredness may be born in our own silence. In our inner solitude we may create sanctuary. This can be true even as we are surrounded by noise.
When Emerson suggests that much of life is "too fine for speech" he is highlighting the pathetic inability of human speech to truly describe our human experience. Caregivers are present for the birth of new life or it's departure in the moment of death. How can speech capture such a thing? What words adequately describe the mean texture of pain?
Similarly, you and I experience our private thoughts and most personal secrets in silence. As John O'Donohue writes: "In our desperate search for meaning and healing, we rush through our towns and cities on our way to work, therapy or doctors."
Sacredness is rarely found in velocity. Yet, we chronically find ourselves rushing so we can "accomplish more." The accomplishments of speed are often among the least important of life's experiences.
How do you experience the rich sanctuary of your own silences? How do you honor the silences of your patients? Do you ever experience a patient's room as a "house of God?"
-Rev. Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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