By Joe LaGuardia
It has been some time since I last wrote an article. I no longer write a weekly column for the newspaper, so that has not helped my cause.
I also moved to a new state, started pastoring a larger church, tried to figure out how to get around town, and sold one house only to purchase another. Life has not been easy; writing has been harder still.
My hectic schedule and lack of routine is no excuse. I was just as busy in my old life in Georgia, but still managed to write two or three articles on a good week.
What is an excuse, however, has to do more with preferences than priorities: I don’t have a sacred space in which to write.
I believe it was Anne Lamott who once said that every writer has a talisman that helps inspire the muses. Some have a special pen or brand of pencil; others use a particular sized notepad. Barbara Brown Taylor writes everything in longhand; movie director Quentin Tarantino types scripts with a 30-year old Smith Corona; Annie Dillard locks herself in cells and cellars.
For me, spaces have always served as talismans. One space was in my old house, a writing desk across from the foot of my bed. I’d wake up early in the morning before the children arose and started typing away.
Another space consisted of the second to the back booth at my favorite chicken wings eatery, where I often read The Christian Century or innumerable books that provided fodder for article and sermon alike.
Moving to a strange land and living in a strange place (we are privileged to stay in a furnished condo until we close on our new home), I have not had a dedicated writing desk set up yet. I have not found a local restaurant to call home. I am still waiting for the good folks at The Christian Century magazines to change my mailing address (thank goodness the secretary at my old church loves me enough to mail me back issues!). I can hardly write.
I may seem odd, but I am not alone in considering the sacredness and utility of space in the grand scheme of practicing my spiritual disciplines, writing included. In fact, Christians have always considered the importance of sacred spaces.
The earliest space God in-dwelled was a garden, a very fit environment for a Creator whose greatest contribution to time and, well, space is the very act of calling things into being, some of which put us humans here in the first place.
Next was a tabernacle–God’s “throne room”– that was nothing short of a tent that moved with a nomadic people who escaped Egypt and ventured towards– you guessed it– a “promised land”.
In the person of Christ, God chose to “tabernacle” and live among us, declaring that even humans are sacred enough to call home: “And the word became flesh,” John’s gospel reminds us.
“Churches” grew soon after Christ’s death and resurrection, first in the homes of believers (Acts 20:20 tells us that the early Christian movement grew “from home to home”), and then to meeting places throughout the Roman empire.
Brick-and-mortar Churches resulted from a greater concentration of wealth among Christians. The earliest edifices started as simple stone structures and then evolved into elaborate cathedrals still celebrated today.
Some Christians, tired of being too wealthy and privileged, chose to abandon their belongings and city life for the deserts of Egypt and Arabia. These desert mothers and fathers noted that the very wilderness in which they sojourned merely reflected the wilderness of all our hearts–sacred spaces were just as important in the “interior” of the soul as exterior spaces were for gathering believers who longed to worship God.
Perhaps the creepiest spaces that Christians occupied were the catacombs of Europe in the darkest ages of Christian history. Persecuted Christians took up residence among the buried dead to sing praises and proclaim a hope in the resurrection of the Lord.
Now, Christians have diversified sacred spaces so much that people forget the importance of space altogether. Christians meet in bars, bookstores, coffee shops, cigar shops, beaches, abandoned banks, and “auditoriums.” Even then, regularly scheduled gatherings of believers only prove how ambiance shapes faith communities.
Spaces, whether we recognize it or not, have a sacredness to them that sometimes go unnoticed. Just try to move states, sell a home, miss a favorite eatery, or close up a church and you will quickly understand how much space creates a place to belong as well as intimate settings where people meet God, hear from the Spirit, and find hope for a new day filled with ever expanding frontiers begging for the Gospel’s invitation.
I was lucky to write this article–I’m still not in a permanent home yet, and in many ways we are homeless until that time comes (but, lo, my cat still found her way onto my laptop keyboard, trying to get a backrub and leaving a wake of odd letters, numbers and symbols on the computer monitor…). Yet, it helps to note that when we appreciate the spaces that are special in our lives, we can always make room in our hearts to help us along the way when we find ourselves “in between” those times and places most sacred in our life.
After all, we don’t invite Jesus into our houses. We invite him into our hearts, for each home is where the heart is.
