Retreat to Sacred Space

Retreat to Sacred Space

I live in New York City, the City that never sleeps.  At any hour of the day or night, the City’s cacophony drowns out nature’s symphony of chirping birds, buzzing bees, singing crickets and rustling leaves.  Screeching brakes of buses and delivery trucks, honking horns of impatient drivers and noise emanating from millions of people living in a compact space prevent silence and solitude.  Appreciating spatterings of foliage in the fall is nearly impossible when driving along the Cross Island Parkway and Grand Central Parkway.  Fast and furious motorists with loud mufflers weave sporadically between lanes necessitating extra vigilance.  The pace of City living relegates everyone to the proverbial rat race in which a person rarely reflects as he shifts between activities and places in a New York minute.  Still, it is hard to function effectively and efficiently without daily introspection.  An assessment of daily living, just before sleep, results in immediate snores followed by piercing sounds of an alarm clock.  Accordingly, I suggest retreating to sacred space at some other time during the day.

Though physically located in New York City and perhaps driving on one of its major veins, I retreat to one of my favorite sacred spaces.  Mystically, I travel back to the front porch of the wooden house where I grew up on the Old Salterstown Road in Sumter, South Carolina.  Encased with torn screens designed to keep bees, flies, wasps, mosquitoes and other insects out, the porch had a warped gray wooden floor that would not absorb a shine.  It was twice the size of an efficiency apartment kitchen in the City.  There, on a clear sunny Carolina morning in any season, I sat in a worn kitchen chair with a seat cushion.  Surrounded by bright daffodils in springtime and October roses in the fall, a huge chinaberry tree adorned the adjacent driveway made of rocks, dirt and gravel.  Across the road, Mr. Burgess’ soybean field extended into the horizon.  Graciously, he allowed the neighborhood residents to pick freely from bountiful pear and pecans trees on his property.  Actually, on any day whether sunny, cloudy, rainy, misty, foggy or brilliant and picturesque, I meditated, planned, reflected, retreated and dreamt about my future.  Mostly, I thought of myriad ways to escape the poverty which surrounded me.  I knew it would break my spirit and severely limit my life if I failed to devise a means of liberation.

Sacred space is holy ground because of God’s presence.  You will recall God’s instructs Moses to take off his shoes at the scene of the burning bush.  Moses hears the voice of God in the bush which though illuminated is not being consumed.  Moses must take off his shoes because he is in the presence of Almighty God.  Sacred space offers an especial opportunity for a transformative and singular encounter with the divine.  The Bible contains several stories in which ordinary people experience a theophany as they attend to daily tasks.  Joshua meets the Captain of the Lord’s Host in the midst of a fierce battle.  In the Upper Room where the Lord instructs them about the burgeoning kingdom of God, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit after the resurrection.  Paul and Silas, as they sing hymns at midnight, more greatly understand God’s power via an earthquake in a Philippian jail.  In the serenity and silence of these sacred spaces, these ordinary persons receive an astonishing moment of truth and clarity.  Similarly, when we retreat to our favorite sacred spaces, God reveals insight and spiritual knowledge yielding inner healing and wholeness.

Howard Thurman discourses upon self-mastery which emerges within periods and spaces of retreat and pilgrimage.  At these times, a person withdraws voluntarily from daily busyness with intention of better understanding himself.  Self-evaluation is vital to spiritual maturity and personal development.  Many people would not suffer emotionally if persons with whom they share intimate relationships consistently examined raw and unvarnished motives.  Men would not manipulate women’s feelings in order to have sex with them, were men to straightforwardly admit their self-centered and self-seeking desires.  The recovery community admonishes it adherents to practice taking an inventory of character assets and liabilities on a regular basis.  The process of self-mastery progresses through three stages: hubris, humiliation and humility.  First, you admit your intensely ego-driven desires.  Second, you sit humiliated before Almighty God as you honestly accept defects of your character and incapacities of your heart.  As you remain in God’s gracious presence, He transforms your character thereby granting you humility.  Additionally, God teaches you HOW to return to human relationships with intention to live as a moral and ethical agent.  Being truthful fosters increasing willingness to practice a lifestyle that honors and glorifies Almighty God. 

Sacred space is necessary to practice spiritual disciplines necessary to emulating mind, heart and character of Jesus Christ.  Prayer and meditation occur naturally in mystical spaces where you feel the presence of God.  Contrary to entrenched religious traditions, a person does not have to be in an ecclesiastical sanctuary to pray.  Geography hardly determines the genuineness of a person’s heart.  Whether driving on a parkway, mowing lawn, riding New York City subway, washing dishes, doing laundry, shoveling snow, your sincere heart and authentic desire to commune with Almighty God transforms the activity and space into holy ground.  There you receive God’s gracious gifts of insight and guidance to achieve the deepest desires of your heart.

In addition, sacred space becomes a mystical studio.  We are channels of God’s love and creativity.  He uses us to communicate His favor, compassion and mercy to humankind.  As unique children of God, we express His divine gifts.  Retreating to sacred space equates with an artist diligently spending time in his studio where divine inspiration, creativity and ingenuity emerge.  There, God rewards the artist’s persistence in his craft.  Similarly, God graciously imparts imagination, bold ideas and superlative achievements to any person seeking His face.