Location, location, location!
Sacred or holy ground has been at the centre of our belief systems since ancient times. A typical belief of the ancient world, expressed in the Book of Ecclesiastes, was that the physical world represented only a passing image of a deeper reality, found in sacred truth.
Historian Mircea Eliade, in his seminal book The Myth of the Eternal Return, discusses our earliest concepts of holy ground. He tells us that the oldest of beliefs position holy ground at locations like the centre of the world, or a mountain where heaven and earth meet. Eliade writes:
The fundamental symbolism of the center may be formulated as follows:
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- The sacred mountain—where heaven and earth meet—is situated at the center of the world.
- Every temple or palace and, by extension, every sacred city or royal residence is a sacred mountain, thus becoming a center.
- Being an axis mundi (world pillar), the sacred city or temple is regarded as the meeting point of heaven, earth and hell.
“Paradise, where Adam was created from clay, is, of course, situated at the center of the cosmos,” he adds. “Paradise was the ‘navel’ of the Earth and, according to a Syrian tradition, was established on a mountain higher than all others.”
This symbolism has survived in the Western world down to modern times in the oft-referenced Anglican idea that the sanctuary of the church symbolically reproduces the new Jerusalem. The symbolism of the mountain, ascension of it and the quest for the centre are found in novels, religious texts and literary works, both modern and historical.
In the Bible, for instance, there is Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19:20); Mount Moriah, where Abraham is tested with the sacrifice of Isaac (Gen 22:2); and the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-2). In The Chronicles of Narnia, a fantasy series by Christian author C.S. Lewis, there is Aslan’s Country, found on a mountain in the east. Lewis also presents the “True Narnia”—a world where characters encourage one another to explore “further up and further in,” travelling up a recursive series of mountains, each at the centre of a world more real than the last.
In war-torn mountainous regions today, people take refuge on the ancient high ground—not just for strategic advantage but for protection by the sacred mountain of their ancestors. An example is families in Lebanon escaping to the mountains during Israeli attacks. One might also say that the continual effort of architects to outdo each other in designing the tallest building in the world is an ongoing quest for the cosmic mountain.
As we travel and take in the remarkable beauty of our Earth, whether viewed from a mountain, seaside, city, or even from space, we can begin to see everywhere within her the signs of the sacred and the real. She performs her liturgies quietly in the community of sun, rain and snow. Insects, birds and those of us who love gardening join this nurturing congregation to produce beauty, shade and the food that sustains us.
Christian thinkers from St. Francis of Assisi to Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin have reminded us that we and the whole of nature are connected through the presence of God. Earth is teeming with life and literally holds us up. We evolved from her, and we shall return to her. As the priest or minister says as they impose the ashes from last year’s Palm Sunday fronds to our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
Most of us are not really aware of how interconnected we are with the Earth and all living beings. This lack of awareness can make us indifferent and dispassionate toward the non-human life with whom we share the planet. Today, as the consequences of industrial development become clear, we are able to see the dire consequences of human societies’ self-absorbed worldviews. I believe we are desperately in need of a paradigm shift that moves us from feeling that we are on the Earth to knowing we are of the Earth.
A first step for individuals to gain a glimpse of that holy ground could be to take a walk! When faced with a problem, the expression “put on your hat and go for a walk” is well-founded, holistic advice. So breathe deeply and experience the day’s weather or the night sky. Include a sense of the numinous or presence of divinity through prayer or sacred awareness. Our church processions are symbolic of exactly this kind of walk when we progress from station to station, telling our story in Advent, or when we as a congregation follow Jesus to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.
Try walking a two-mile round trip, or whatever distance suits your body, and become intimately acquainted with your neighborhood—cats, dogs and their walkers, trees and plants (as they move through their cyclical changes), architecture and the details of the landscape. Allow your mind to wonder and your creative juices to flow as, with senses alert, you breathe and walk.
Do this ritually, taking the same route at regular intervals—daily, weekly or even monthly. As you gain an at-oneness with the life on your familiar route, you may find, in time, that a problem is solved or a creative idea born and that you, in your retoned body, are walking on holy ground.
A prayer to carry with you:
Gracious God, make me mindful of the ground made holy by Jesus as he moved along the seashore, climbed the hills of Jerusalem, made the painful journey to the cross and a revealing walk to Emmaus.
Remind me of my connectedness to all life as step by step I become aware of holy ground, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
