The Sacred and the Secular

Is there a line between what is sacred and what is secular? I learned as a child in absolute terms that there was a firm, hard line between what is sacred, and all that other stuff that isn't sacred.

This line showed up in the way I was taught to keep our sacred books apart, and never stack other books on top of them.

This line showed up in the way we kept a copy of our most sacred book---a particular version of the Bible which we called "The Word"---on a special elevated stand in a point of prominence in our home.

This line showed up in the way our family held "family worship" every week-night---a time devoted to God and sacred scripture and sacred songs---during which laughter was not welcome, nor was fidgeting.

I can remember the deep shame of being sent to my room for giggling, and another time for trying too persistently to straighten my sock.  Nothing interrupted family worship; not favorite television shows, not phone calls, not social engagements (how dare the hosts schedule an event during "family worship time," a time which my parents wanted added to the community social calendar).

It was taught in the very way my community lived set apart. I grew up in an intentional Christian community that saw itself as more important and more worthy than regular society ("the world") by virtue of us "having" the truest sacred scripture and understanding of it than any other group, and because the community was devoted to raising its children in the teachings through its dedicated religious schools.

I learned that the best answer to "what would be the one thing you would grab to save if the house was on fire?" was "The Word". Since we all had our own copies of the Word in our bedrooms, if the house did burn down, we would be standing outside with seven identical copies of this sacred book, while photos, pets, heirlooms, art, sentimental or uniquely meaningful possessions and all other books went up in flames.

I have to laugh at the notion now, even as I have a somewhat tender empathy for the earnest sincerity of my parents, (and I also better understand the psychological underpinnings of the personality types that are drawn to this sort of absolutism). Such earnestness is not even remotely pragmatic. We would have had no food or blankets or tools or communication devices. But we would have proved to the Divine that we valued the Word above all things!

I wonder sometimes if the resilience and *cough* "wisdom" (perspective?) I seem to have today would be available to me given a different upbringing. I can never know who or what I would have been had I not been raised the way I was. I only know that while I absolutely value "the sacred", I refuse to tell someone else what that should be sacred for them.  The sense of being near something sacred is personal and unpredictable, (and guided by a being much bigger and better than myself.)

Having been raised with a "great gulf fixed between" (Luke 16:26) the sacred and the secular, much of my adult attention has included exploring that boundary.

And my conclusion is that there is no real boundary. I believe that the boundary is a human construction necessary for the development of a moral compass. It is necessary for our ability to make choices about what we value and support and what we do not.  And those values are variable depending on our personality, our nervous system, our culture, and our community.

While I believe that there is absolutely a difference between good and evil, I believe that how humans sort that difference into moral values is variable, (and a constant source of fear and tension).  I don't think humans are great arbiters of whose perspective is "right" nor how our varying perspectives ought to shape our society.

An example: "The Life of Brian" was one of the top favourite movies among my seminary peers and professors. Surprised? As thinking, living, questioning, and intelligent students of the sacred and secular, we all appreciated the questions it asks and the silliness of our human tendency to draw nonsensical boundaries and call them religious. "The Life of Brian" is just one more form of art pointing to what has always been true: humans tend to take natural things and set them up as sacred, and then get upset when someone else doesn't respect our sacred thing.

"We shall be people of the gourd!" "No! We shall be people of the shoe!" shows a first division in "believers" who aren't even listening to the original speaker.  Humans make meaning from all sorts of things, and move quickly into fighting about who is right.

When it came out in 1979, I deliberately refused to see "The Life of Brian".  The person I was back then would have been upset deeply by it.  My family culture with its absolutist view of the sacred and secular had shaped me to be incapable of comprehending the movie's message. I would only have seen it as an assault on the MOST IMPORTANT AND SACRED, and been unable to see the nuance, humor, intelligence or indeed, the RESPECT of the questions being asked. I didn't see it as an invitation to explore human rigidity around the sacred and secular. I just saw someone spray-painting indecencies on a creche set.

While there was something beautiful in how reverently I was taught to treat certain objects and spaces and practices as a child, there would be something missing if I never grew beyond that original simplistic spirituality to understand that those precious things "stand for" spiritual things and are not sacred in themselves.

As a rule, we humans can't help but see churches as sacred places. We can't help but see certain objects or people as "set apart" and innately holy.

But it is also very important (in my estimation) never to forget that the Divine is not MORE present some places than others. The Divine is not more able to hear us or help us or be present with us due to certain people or objects being near, or due to our location on the planet. What part of Omnipotent, and Omnipresent do we not understand?

It is our feeling and thinking that affect whether we feel or believe that a thing or person or place is more sacred or not. God is everywhere always. It is our choice to treat certain people, places and things as more sacred or not. The Divine is within everything that exists, aware and wise, listening and caring.

All of the rules and religions and boundaries and categories have been created on the human, mortal side of the tennis fence. We make them. We need them. And we use them for harm as well as good.

Today I invite us all to pay attention to where we draw our boundaries. I am inviting curiosity and mindfulness and intentionality about our boundaries. I want increasingly to understand why I say yes to some things and no to others. I want to understand that in my living, where the rubber hits the road, nothing is cut and dried (too many cliches?); that judging others for being different does not help peace on earth. Listening and making space helps peace on earth. (And saying clear "NO"s as necessary are part of this process too.)

Peace on earth is sacred to me. Peace on earth is complicated and seemingly impossible. But whether we get there through sacred meaning-making or secular boundary-drawing, may we get there. May we fight less about what we see differently, sacred or secular. The God I believe in doesn't care what name we use, or whether we believe, or what is or isn't sacred in our individual lives; the Divine One I follow wants us to treat each other well. Period. Fighting over what is or isn't sacred is just another distraction.

End pontification! Now go love yourself some neighbors!