Some Re-Thinking

For longer than I can remember, maybe even forever, I have contrasted the holy space of the sanctuary with the secular world which surrounds it.  And, while I was thinking more about the two different cultures being alongside of one another, I also was declaring the prayed over space of the sanctuary as holy and the outside the sanctuary space as space not holy.  As I read J. Philip Newell's book entitled, "Listening for the Heartbeat of God, A Celtic Spirituality" I realized a need to do some re-thinking.

 

At one point he writes, "As the history of Celtic spirituality shows, it is a tradition that can stand free of the four walls of the Church, for the sanctuary of God is not separate from but contained within the whole of creation."  Immediately I recalled the passage about the earth being the Lord's and also the one which speaks of the created order being good.  And, I remembered, too, some earlier thoughts about the farm on which I now live in retirement being a sanctuary bounded not by brick and mortar, but by the meeting of earth and sky at the horizon. 

 

What the Celtic tradition declares is something I had sensed within me, but still I am not sure I had ever taken the step of considering the whole earth, the entire creation, to be holy.  But, it is.  It has all been set apart for His purposes as surely as we set apart buildings for holy purposes with our prayers.  Even as we think of the sanctuary as a holy place where God is likely to be encountered, so does the Celtic tradition call us to know that God is just as likely to be encountered outside the walls as inside of them.  Be on the lookout.  God is there.  God is here.  God is with us.  God is in us.  God is everywhere.