I am in Ireland right now, exploring new sites of ancient sacredness. Last Sunday's preacher at LFC-Huntersville, Byron Davis, assisted us in practicing something I learned from my first trip to Ireland seven years ago. I wrote this in October 2010 after Byron helped us resacralize our church land, it includes writing from my first sabbatical:
The consecration-of-our-land aspect of the 24 Hours of Prayer this weekend at Lake Forest Church (5pm fri-5pm sat) had its roots in my Ireland travels a few years ago. A pastor friend of mine, whose church is descended from emancipated slaves who once worked cotton on our church land, is going to participate with us in prayer to replace ancient cursing (from the generational sin of slavery) with future blessing in our 'sacred space.' (Rev. Byron Davis of Mt. Olive Baptist Church) Here is an excerpt from the paper I wrote after my 2005 sabbatical, on 'Sacredness of Place":
Sacredness of Place, and the Ongoing Mystery of Incarnation.
During my time in the north of England, and traveling throughout Ireland, I became aware that people – especially people of faith – had an entirely different perspective on ‘place’ from any I’d known. This perspective connected with the reading I had been doing on ancient Celtic Christianity. They believed that long-term connection between a highly spiritual person or persons (for good or evil) and a physical location led to a sacredness (or cursedness) of place. These sacred places are known as ‘thin places’ in ancient Celtic faith practice – places where the veil between this world and the unseen is uniquely thin, and may be penetrated at any moment. Interaction with Other, Eternal, God in Trinity is likely and expected here.
Thin Places are considered destinations for pilgrimage of the faithful – a type of spiritual wandering with a simply defined goal (“I’ll go to this sacred place”) and a rock-solid expectation (“God will somehow meet me there in a special way”). Pilgrims arrive at such places and participate in ritual prayer and offering of respect. Their expectation of the immanence of ‘God with us’ is heightened on their visit, and they invariably encounter some presence of God through the place, through circumstances, or through their fellow pilgrims.
I traveled to many such places (most Christian, but one of the most powerful for me was predominantly pagan – the ancient kingly Hill of Tara, sacral center of Ireland during the pre-Christian centuries). The Holy Island of Lindisfarne was close to the retreat center I attended, and the first at which I prayed to be open in spirit to such a reality. So three retreat companions and I traveled there for a day. Lindisfarne is a tidal island on the northeast coast of England, upon which grew a famous monastic community and (later) a feudal castle. Today, it is a small fishing village among ancient ruins, with several active churches hosting pilgrims. This island was the center for the Irish Celts (wandering the world by boat, settling wherever the Gospel was needed and the Spirit led) to evangelize the pagan Anglo-Saxons of England in the seventh through ninth centuries. St. Cuthbert is the major figure associated with the place – a man of apostolic leadership gifts (he oversaw many successful missions to the barbarian population inland), with the gentleness of St. Francis (many are the stories of his affinity with God’s wild creatures, as well as the poor), and so given to prayer and contemplation that he had his own private island retreat to which he escaped regularly, just so he could be alone with his Lord when the tide was in and access was cut off. His faithfulness in service to Christ gave definition to the island for several hundred years of followers who spread the Gospel from that place.
I personally experienced Lindisfarne as a ‘thin place.’ My companions and I engaged in specific prayers throughout various stations on the island, most importantly as we arrived and later departed. At the close of the day, we were graced with the view of a rainbow ending just over the old monastery, as we sat in a pub overlooking the bay. How much of the immanence of God I encountered there that may be attributed to my heightened awareness and openness, and thus is waiting for me at every turn and moment wherever I go, I do not know. But in the ancient monastic ruins, the graveyard, the beach, and wild cliffs I heard and saw something otherworldly. That is the best I can say about my experience of the Lord there.
I had similar yet unique experiences at Saul Church, Croagh Patrick, Downpatrick, Tara, Newgrange, Nendrum, and Skellig Michael – all ancient and sacred sites in Ireland. I am now a believer in sacredness of place, and I want to explore a wider conception of the incarnation this ‘theology of place’ is based upon.
God’s call on Abraham was to a specific place, a place of blessing. A place that God’s Word assures us will be central in the consummation of all things. God made us physical beings, out of dirt. He put Adam and Eve on specific dirt. The incarnation – God cohering to physical matter in His Son – dignifies all matter, all physical reality. There is no spirit versus matter, good-spiritual-world versus evil-material-world dichotomy in Biblical Christianity. Spirit and matter combine and interpenetrate in ways we do not yet understand (see current philosophy textbooks on the ‘mind/body connection problem,’ best and first described in modern terms by Renee Descartes in the 17th century).
According to many observers (Leanne Payne is the most recently read by me on this subject), Reformed Protestantism has succumbed, more than any other Christian stream, to a primarily rational-materialist worldview, discounting much of the received Christian wisdom and experience from previous centuries regarding spiritual realities close to us at all times, sacredness of place, physical healing, etc. I stand directly in this sacrally-denuded line of thought, and my spiritual life has been the poorer for this aspect of Reformed and modern Protestant reductionism.
When Jeremiah says to “Look now and see: Ask for the old paths, the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it and you will find rest for your souls…Set up waymarks for those who will return by this way” (Jeremiah 6:16 and 31:21), I believe ‘sacredness of place’ is an ancient path we are in need of walking today. I will continue to explore this mystical-seeming application of the incarnation.
I want to explore this particularly as it relates to the spiritual history of our region, and as it relates to Lake Forest’s property and building as a potential place of sacred encounter with the Trinity. I pray that Lake Forest’s location on Gilead Road will become known and experienced as a ‘thin place’ for generations to come. I intend to begin treating it as such.
Application could particularly be made to the prayer room we are building. Having gifted intercessors in the room consistently may add to a reality of ‘thinness’ there. Also, aesthetes in the church must be in charge of the room’s decoration and furniture, as all ‘thin places’ I visited seem to have in common either natural or artistic beauty. We also must take potential ‘cursedness’ of place seriously, as our property was worked by slaves for generations, enriching the white cotton plantation owners. We must seriously consider a prayer-warring service at which we confess the sins of our fathers, ask for forgiveness (from God and whom else?), and in the name of Jesus evict any physical incarnations of cursedness attached to the ground our church is built upon.
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