Sacred Spaces

Photo credit: Biruk Tibebe, The Daily Pennsylvanian

Sacred. It originates from the Latin word sacer, meaning “consecrated, dedicated, purified.” It’s a heavy word, weighed down by imagery of high ceilings and stained glass. It’s only two syllables, and yet we utter it quite infrequently. We reserve it for cathedrals and tombs and monuments because we are told that this is where it belongs. 

In Wendell Berry’s poem “How to Be a Poet,” he writes, “There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.” This is a curious proclamation because I can think of plenty of spaces that don’t live up to my standard of sacred. The McDonalds on 40th Street with its smoke-stained windows. The harshly lit classroom where I took chemistry my freshman year. The space behind my apartment where the trash piles up before it’s collected every Monday. So what did Wendell mean? 

In Matthew 21, Jesus enters a temple. A temple that was built with the word sacred in mind. A temple with certain areas so holy that most people had never seen it. He enters a temple and destroys it. He flips the tables and drives everyone out. “And He said to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” He assesses the holiness of the temple based on what’s happening inside. When we reflect on this story, we realize that much of the sacredness of a space comes from those who inhabit it. Perhaps more specifically, sacredness is where Christ is. This is why a church can be in a cathedral or a basement – “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” When we share a Big Mac on 40th Street, or teach each other quantum mechanics in creaky desks, or remember to sort the recycling from the trash behind the apartment – we consecrate that space with the divinity that asserts itself when we choose to love each other.