August 13, 2001
The Sacred In Everyday Life
sacred: entitled to
reverence and respect
reverence: profound
adoring awed respect
sacrament: a practice
that is considered especially sacred as a sign or symbol of a deeper reality
Last week my wife, Janice, and I entered into a
conversation about the meaning of sacred. We
discussed what the term meant to us and then tried to think of examples of
things in our everyday life that should be considered sacred.
The
definitions above were only a few given in the dictionary.
Most had a religious connotation and centered on objects set aside for
worship. But our conversation
revolved around things we held near and dear to our hearts.
As we discovered during our conversation, items,
tasks, routines, and events can all be considered sacred.
It also became clear that the sacredness placed on something by one
person might not be considered sacred to another.
What Janice spoke of was our frequent trips to our
favorite place to have coffee, Stellaluna.
To most people this would seem fairly routine and hardly an event to be
designated sacred. In fact, there
are many who would say their caffeine fix in the morning is more like brushing
their teeth: it has to be done.
Stellaluna represents a special setting for us.
The people are friendly and happy to greet you.
It has a fireplace for the colder days and a patio for the warmer ones.
Most of all, it is reserved almost exclusively for “us time”.
I can count on one hand the number of times that we have been there with
others or without each other. We
talk, we read, we sit and stare, we write, we are.
So based on the criteria that Webster’s Dictionary set forth, our trips
to get coffee are sacred.
When we transcend the world of doing for being, our
paradigm shifts and things that seem mundane can become sacred.
Little things are no longer taken for granted and we can be filled with a
sense of awe. We begin to respect what we have and see rather than long for
new and better things or experiences.
On Saturday I ran into a woman we recently met at a
party. She told me that ever since
our meeting she had reflected on our discussion about Spain and how animated
Janice and I had been about a trip that only lasted five days. It had made her
very excited about her own upcoming trip to Spain.
I quickly told her that our trip had been sacred to us and she may have a
different experience based on her own reaction to the people, sights, sounds and
feelings.
I believe that we can invite sacredness into our
lives. As I was writing on this
subject, Janice brought me a book by Sue Bender titled, Everyday Sacred.
Regarding her own reflection on this subject she states, “I wanted to see
with fresh eyes. What might have
been there all along that I had not been able to see?
What had I taken for granted?”
By being attentive to life through eyes filtered with
love and acceptance, sacredness appears all around us.
This way of living constantly keeps us in touch with our soul.
With respect, acceptance, and love,
Richard
©
Richard D. Olson and Awaken The Soul, 2001
Excerpt from Everyday Sacred:
A Woman’s Journey Home by Sue Bender, Copyright 1995, HarperCollins
Publishers