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Showing posts from August 5, 2012

Sacred Space 3

While pondering a recent conversation I had with an acquaintance on the topic of sacred space {it may be helpful for you to review what I’ve written on this already, by going here and here ), I tripped over a statement made by C.S. Lewis in his little work titled “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer” that gently and perceptively speaks to the subject: “It is well to have specifically holy places, and things, and days, for, without these focal points or reminders, the belief that all is holy and “big with God” will soon dwindle into mere sentiment. But if these holy places, things, and days cease to remind us, if they obliterate our awareness that all ground is holy and every bush (could we but perceive it) a Burning Bush, then the hallows begin to do harm. Hence both the necessity, and the perennial danger, of “religion”” (Letter XIV, p. 75). Lewis has hit on at least two risks that accompany the subject. But he has also proposed a healthy way forward. The first risk is t