What is a Sacred Space?

What is a sacred space

Over the last few days there has been an interesting discussion on my previous post Creating Sacred Spaces: Do We Really Need Churches? which has raised the question for me, and obviously for many others: What is a sacred space.

The forest one day and the café the next, from a mountaintop sunrise to the neon city lights; they do compliment and complete each other. Sacred is where the soul goes, not just what is there as prior.

Sacred is where the soul goes. I love that expression. A place is not sacred because it is set aside for the worship of God. Nor is it sacred because it is constructed specifically to glorify God. A place is sacred, ground is holy because we encounter God there. Think on Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. This bush was not unique, it was probably identical to many other bushes in the area. What made it special was that God was revealed to Moses in that place.

Sacred space is where we intentionally move towards an encounter with God. Moses could have kept on walking and ignored the bush, just as we so often do today when God appears in unexpected but ordinary places. It seems to me that we have confined sacred experiences and holy ground to church buildings that God never really wanted anyway. I love a couple of the suggestions that have been voiced on my previous post:

I do remember as a youngster in Chicago, some of my favorite things to do would be to go to those parts of the city where most would not. Have you ever experienced taking a date to go sit on the curb in a lesser part of town and discuss life with the local denizens? This too was holy ground at those times.

We can even extend that now to include other ethnic groups, other cultures, other nations. Though it may not be a face to face experience; when dialoguing with friends all over the word, finding new experiences through their thoughts and expanding my mind with different ideas,makes my computer one more holy place.

So what are the unexpected sacred places in your life? Where do you encounter a special relationship with God and what are the activities, experiences and conversations that make it sacred?