Beeswax Appreciation

I like beeswax candles for the warm color, the smell, they are clean burning and long burning. I love to get special molded ones for special times of the year. Like egg shaped ones with molded flowers on them for Eastertide. Last year, I got a beeswax sanctuary candle (the tall glass jar, sometimes has saints images on the outside) right at the beginning of autumn and burned it regularly, finishing it up around All Souls Day. I have never had a sanctuary candle burn all the way down to nothing, but with careful candle tending I was able to use the whole thing. 

I love appreciating the work of the bee, and honoring the cycle of energy. The flame that burns from that beeswax fuel is the energy from the sun. I imagine the journey…The sun’s rays shining on the leaves of a plant, that plant using the energy to grow and make blossoms, the pollen that the bee gathers, makes into honey, makes into wax…that little glowing flame burning. These kinds of things are so amazing and full of meaning and wonder to me.

Often the Christ Candle is a white candle and with beeswax you have a warm tan color. For a Godly Play environment, or an at home altar, having this shift is just another way to bring in a beautiful, fragrant, and natural component and get out of that bright white=pure and holy visual narrative.

Lenten Prayer

Winter is turning toward Spring, it is time for Lent. In our neighborhoods, we see petals everywhere-blooming flowers, blossoms in the trees, floating around us on the breeze and covering the ground. We delight in these petals, and in the strawberries, artichokes, and birdsong, too. Sometimes, being a human is so sweet.   

Thank you God for our beautiful world.

And even as our hearts surge with springtime feelings, we know this beautiful world is also a wilderness. War, fear, injustice, sickness, and death surround us and facing our humanity is hard. Wherever we turn, dust; wherever we step, terrain that challenges us.

God of the petals and the wilderness, be near us now.

Mother God, Lent reminds us we need you. To comfort all the hurt, to forgive all our wrongdoing. We need that merciful lap to sit in and recount how being a human in this world means suffering.

As we face our humanity, be with us.

Mother, you hold all your children in this way, there is not one who isn’t loved and cherished by you. No matter how powerful we may think we are, we are dust and to dust will return. We need your strong love to surround us.

As we face our humanity, hold us close.

In that embrace, we are held with those who have gone before us. In God’s embrace, death doesn’t separate us.

As we face our humanity, we seek the wisdom of their lives and stories.

Walking this road of Lent, ashes and plain cloth line our path. Being present to the wilderness in the world and in ourselves is painful. We can falter, look away, pretend we aren’t connected.

God, give us courage to walk in this wilderness. May the journey reveal new depths of your love for us and new understandings of our humanity.

Preparing for Candlemas (Imbolc, Groundhog Day, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, St. Brigid's Day, Hromnice)

Our first beeswax candles in holders the kids made from model magic clay.

Snow Drops

February 1 and 2 are so storied and full of meaning for so many. Celebrating, observing, or even just exploring some of these rituals and celebrations is a rich place to start creating your own circle of the year. For me, February 2 was the spark that started my own journey of synthesizing myths, religious traditions and nature into a wheel that I make meaning with annually. I first celebrated Candlemas in 2015, we made beeswax candles and looked for snowdrop flowers which grow abundantly in the boulevards of Berkeley. Over the years I have learned about the myriad traditions for this little moment in the Northern Hemisphere at the midway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox.

For thousands of years, this time in the year we know now as February 1 and 2 have held so many layers of story. In exploring these layers we see nothing can really be erased, can it? Even if the Empires and Institutions try, it is all there. We humans want to mark this half way point of Winter. A folk tradition of spotting Punxsutawney Phil’s shadow is the same day as the day we celebrate the ceremonial presentation of Jesus at the temple, 40 days after his birth. The goddess of poetry and woman of wisdom, Brigid, whose connection to Imbolc, a celtic Spring festival is February 1. And that Brigid, copied in the persona of St. Brigid, whose feast day is also February 1. And throughout, references to brightening light-from the traditional foods of the Christian holiday: round pancakes and cakes to hearken the sun’s return, to the perpetual fires that St. Brigid is associated with, to the little flames on the beeswax candles made and blessed that day, to the bonfires and new fires of Imbolc.

I love celebrating this day, and making candles and picking snowdrops is one of my favorite traditions and one where it is easy to make a direct connection between what is happening in nature despite us, and what is happening in our homes because we remember something on purpose each year.

Dry Season

This summer was dry. I wrote no poems. I left my sacred spot on the mantle unattended for weeks at a time. I felt like I didn’t care about anything. I was bored. Anxious. Busy.

It was a dry season. The one thing I did was write a prayer for prayers of the people at church. The vulnerability I felt in that made the dry season even drier. A little bug under the magnifying glass and the sun brought into a sizzling point. Writing a bid and response prayer is weird. But writing that prayer was the best thing, only thing I did this summer. Ah, but I made a garden, though. There’s that.

Now, the days of summer are dwindled down to just a few. And I feel the change. I picked the frilly cosmos, and brought them into the house, I set out rocks i love and lit a candle. I put out the first icon I ever had, “All Saints”, or “The Great Cloud of Witnesses”. I stood for a moment feeling a slight softening in the rock of my heart. The hope for growth; for the dew on the ground to stay through the morning.

Greenwood

How I interact with the Bible has changed in many ways over the years, but one way that has always been there, and now is mostly everything to me is letting the evocative nature of OLD words run away in my imagination. When I hear a phrase or a word that seems like it is dropping down into my heart from far off, but feels very imaginable, or reminds me of other things that make layers like an opera cake, that is really it for me. That’s all I’ve got. It’s enough though. A recent example:

This year on Good Friday, at the Stations of the Cross service, I heard Martha say “If they do this in the greenwood, then what will happen when it is dry?” Jesus is speaking to the women on the road as he is carrying his cross outside the city. When I first heard it, I heard greenwood as one word or one thought because of reading The 13 days of Christmas by Jenny Overton to the kids. There is a day the boys go to the greenwood and cut branches, and also because of The Once and Future King by T.H. White and the way Wart plays in the greenwood. Very Old English! So greenwood at once caused me to imagine a whole beautiful woods, full of animals and ferns and berries and all kinds of trees. I thought about the words like that, if they can do this terrible thing, even surrounded by such beauty and complete vibrancy, then what terrible things will people do when that greenwood is destroyed, burned, cleared...it made me aware of the escalation of violence in the world as the world itself, the greenwood is turning dry and brittle.

Then I went and looked up the verse as it had reverberated through my head for a few days. And it was more like, “If they can do this to a green tree, then what will they do when the tree is dry?” And that was more personal, Jesus, being the green tree, a young man and being killed, being snuffed out. And so many young men in their very prime of life being snuffed out by violence. Everytime a black person is murdered by police, a green tree, gone. The senselessness of it within the tree metaphor is newly realized. Like Ocean Vuong said about George Washington, “If someone cuts down a fruit tree, that’s a red flag for me.” It’s just wrong. 

Then there is the Greenwood Massacre of 1921. Imagine that. If they can do that at Greenwood? What will they do when it is burned and gone? And suddenly time shifts again and the green is already gone and we are way in the dry.

So much to grieve in that station of the cross. And freshly grieve with the killing of Daunte Wright.

Sacred Spot for Justice

It’s a social media phenomenon. You re-post the thing that you care about to show everyone else who follows you that you care about it. Politics, social justice issues, even holidays. Sometimes, this shows solidarity, or maybe is an opportunity to share with others who might not have seen or heard about the issue. Sometimes, it’s a reaction to angry or sad feelings. Sometimes, I confess, I’ve used it as a tool to help me “move on” from my feelings.

When you have a sacred place in your home, a place that reflects your heart and your world, you have a place to bring these issues as well. I have noticed that when I am burdened by injustice, I have a desire to spend some time with it. To spend some time writing someone’s name down on a paper, finding a piece of art that reflects the pain, the anger and the despair, lighting a candle and making the sign of the cross.

At this time in my life, as I approach prayer falteringly, and am always questioning my theology, the sacred spot is the place where I can lament and show honor to those who are suffering. When the Charleston Church Massacre happened, in June 2015, I brought some rosemary to the place I had set up a sacred spot, thinking in my heart “Rosemary for remembrance.” It was remembrance for those who had been killed, but it was also remembrance for why and how. It was a place I could touch the edges and find the shape of the thing I knew was white supremacy. It is there, and I cannot move on or forget. This was a signal of some sort to myself, to begin again in honoring those who suffer and die because of this evil thing, to name it and fight it.

The sacred spot is the place to bring your sorrow for injustice. Write out a name. Put a sprig of rosemary, light a candle and reflect on an image of Christ suffering. Unlike the social media phenomenon, it is tangible, you can touch it and smell it. And maybe you will post a picture, like I do sometimes, but the reason you do it is to hold yourself there with the thing you hate, that you mourn.

I will never forget Padraig O’Tuama sharing about the idea of Jesus descending into hell on Holy Saturday. That it’s important-Jesus goes into the dark place, a cave of suffering so that when we find ourselves there, where it feels we are beyond his reach we also find him, “Christ, our lonely and suffering brother”. This image of finding Christ in that darkness, alone and sad; not rescuing us, but with us, is haunting and heartbreaking.

So I come to the sacred spot sometimes wondering what to do with the anguish of injustice, the fear, the violence. And Christ, my lonely and suffering brother is there.

Lenten Spot

The sacred spot during Lent is a helpful tool. Observing Lent can sometimes feel like a success/failure paradigm. You were able to keep your fast; you weren’t able to keep your fast. But the true observation of a holy Lent is to be fully and humbly present to the time and season and all the human feelings you have as a result of that. Lent means Spring-we are noticing and observing the arrival of this season in nature. As we look toward the celebration of Easter as an arrival of Spring and an ending of winter, we are made aware of the need for re-awakening, re-warming, re-birth in our human experience too. The sacred spot is a way to honor this time in the year. It is a place to notice the season, and with every glance at the spot, every candle we light there, a little reorientation to the moment: It’s raining. It’s sunny. I’m lonely. I’m grateful. There are blossoms. The morning is cold and frosty. The day is mild. The robins and bluebirds are back.

The sacred spot in Lent isn’t about making a commitment or evaluating yourself. It’s simply about a reminder place and letting a small part of your home environment represent the bigger reality of the world. The season and story that draws you into itself as a small part of a bigger picture. Spring, human frailty, God as human, love, sacrifice, dust as our beginning and ending…if ever we needed a little spot for reflection, we do during this time of year. Blessings on your Lent. You need do nothing. It is holy to be a human on planet earth as it turns to Spring.

Advent Spots

Advent is a perfect opportunity to start a year round sacred spot in your home. If you have a nativity set, or an advent wreath, think about how you interact with these spots during this season. Perhaps you notice the pleasure with which you set up the figures of your nativity. Holding the pieces and arranging them, you are mindful of how the pieces are telling the story you know so well.

Maybe lighting the candles has found a place in your mealtime routine, or Sunday morning ritual as you are sheltering-in-place.

Having a year-round sacred spot can be on your dining room table, in your kitchen, on your mantle, a dresser. Maybe the place where you’ve set up your advent wreath or nativity set is a good spot to consider. When you take down these items, you could put something else there that can be a focal point, a reminder of the time you are in, of what spiritually is significant for you right now.

Celebrating Christmastide, the 12 days of Christmas, you might replace the advent candles with one large pillar candle with a gold, or red and green underlay. Liturgically, the colors would be white and gold. I think it’s fun to use the red and green Christmas colors, too. When Epiphany comes, you can celebrate the season of Epiphany if that is your tradition, or you can put a green cloth underneath your candle and celebrate the short season of ordinary time between Epiphany (January 6) and Ash Wednesday (February 17).

The spot where you have your nativity might be the spot you want to keep going: after taking down the nativity, you can put a shell, a pinecone, a beautiful stone. As you put an object or two, or an icon or piece of art, remember how handling the nativity as you set it up can be a meditative practice of remembering with your hands something that lives in your heart. You can do this with all the items you set up in the sacred spot. Slow down, choose objects that help you remember God in your home, in this moment of time.

Sacred Spot for Learning

In my own spiritual journey, there have been times when an image or word becomes like an unfolding parable to me and my growth. Suddenly, some new facet is revealed about my image of God, or my story with God. It is a meaningful touchstone as this kind of growth takes shape to have a sacred spot to feature that word or image. You can light the candle there and create a visual for the idea that is taking hold in your heart. Once, this was the phrase, “I am open to new ways of being.” Once “Thy Kindom Come.”

Right now, I have the Dancing Christ in our sacred spot, an icon written by Mark Dukes. I have this image leaning against a painting of a forest path in autumn. Every time I see it, I feel the invitation to dance down that path, to continue my journey with Jesus with dancing steps, even in this darkening season, even in this pandemic season—a time that feels lonely and limited. Dancing with God has been an invitation in my imagination for several years now, and I still think of the song “Shut up and Dance with me” when I playfully take God’s outstretched hand.

Once, I put a little drawing of an adjusted view of God, attempting to retrain my brain from my childhood perspective of ME, here and GOD, there. Along with the quote, from Catherine of Siena, “God is closer to us than water to a fish.” Glancing at that little drawing and the quote on the altar, helped me.

The Sacred Spot for learning uses the home altar as a the very personal space it is, to hold our learnings like a music stand, as we grapple with language and images for God.

The Spot for Remembrances

The first anniversary of my friend Kelly’s death, I put her picture and a bracelet she had made for me at the sacred spot. Enough time had passed that when I mentioned that Kelly had died a year ago, my younger kids said, “Who?” and then when they saw her picture and the bracelet, they remembered her and we talked about a few of the things she liked and ways she was a part of our lives.

I started doing this with my Grandma, but I do it on her birthday. Many people who have passed on we remember on their birthdays or death days, or both.

At the Sacred Spot, we can put up a picture and fresh flowers and light the candle and we take some time to remember. Remembrances aren’t about perfection, you may forget for one year, or several. You may choose not to do it one year, or several. This isn’t about creating a new rigid schedule of observances. It’s about how remembering isn’t part of our regular living, and the sacred spot can bring back this practice into our modern lives.

Remembrances also are a part of using the sacred spot to mark time that makes sense in our own personal calendars. In the same way that you can selectively celebrate holidays and feast days that mean something to you, you can add in dates to remember those who have died. Over the years, I have a few dates written down and we remember these individuals yearly. This isn’t set in stone, but this is part of our working family calendar.

Fred Korematsu Day, January 30

The Candle

Lighting a candle to remember is an ancient practice. Across culture and religion, we light a candle to gather around a small light that anchors our minds together. For the sacred spot at home, if I were to distill it to it’s most elemental parts, I’d say, underlay, candle, image. I’ve talked a bit in previous posts about the underlay and the image, so here I am pondering the candle.

In Godly Play, on the focal table, one of the components is the Christ Candle. Lighting this candle reminds us of a few important stories, the story of baptism, wherein all the candles are lit from the flame of the Christ Candle, and the Advent and Christmas stories, wherein the concept of the light changing comes into play. The idea of this is, we light the candles of Advent and Christmas, to enjoy the lights of the holy family, the shepherds, the wise men and the light of the Christ child, but when we use the snuffer when the story is done, we don’t extinguish the flame, we change the light. You can see the flame is gone, but the smoke spreads out thinner and thinner, filling the whole space with the light. The light is there, even when the flame is gone. Yet, we come to the Christ Candle every week to light it and enjoy the flame, to remind us of the light that is with us and within us.

We light candles at the dinner table to commemorate the ritual of eating and sharing the table together. We light candles on the birthday cake to celebrate years of life. Sometimes, we light candles at church, to remember someone who is suffering, or celebrating, someone who is in this world, or the next. In a sacred spot at home, lighting the candle can be an intentional act-spotlighting your little spot for God, bringing attention to it for a space of a few hours in the evening, or during a celebration or prayer time. Maybe on days when you honor someone who has died, the little candle in your sacred spot stays burning all day and all evening. Reminding you that their light is always with you.

The act of lighting a candle brings attention and devotion to the space, and as you notice the smell of the sulfur when you light the match, the flickering flame, and step back to see the glow illuminate the spot, you bring your awareness to the sights, smells and sounds of your way of making a space for God at home.

A candle lit for The Great Mother, a painting by Janet McKenzie

Sacred Spaces in Nature

Sacred Spaces in nature isn’t about making something, or setting something aside as such. Nature is sacred space. Noticing nature always helps us make sacred spaces at home, because our little spots at home should be reminders of the season, of the natural world, of how it feels to be akin to it.

I wrote this after visiting a sacred spot-Armstrong Woods, and realizing that it had been made into a spot on the mantle, a tiny little church, out of what should have been the landscape of our whole state, an environment that we should walking among, living within, instead of cupping our hands around this small representation of it…

Redwoods

We walked up to a tree that was 1300 years old. They called the tree “Parson Jones”. 

I don’t know what that tree’s real name is, but I know that’s not their name.

95% of the redwoods originally here in California have been destroyed, a plaque says. 

We destroy and protect in turns.

We don’t deserve the peace of the forest. The layers of living and dead perfectly balanced.

I don’t speak their language and can only say silently, “Is it ok for me to be with you right now?” 

The steam came off the moss on the trunks of the redwoods in breaths, can you ignore that?

If they are my old aunties and great, great uncles, 50 generations back, then I honor them with my life. I greet them. I learn from them. 

And as they will outlive me, I treat them like the babies I am lucky enough to hold, I bless them for the future beyond my sight. 

May you stand sentinel on this land for generations to come. 

May the forest we don’t deserve endure.

Sacred Spots during Shelter in Place

During this time, when we need to stay home, when religious services have been canceled, we may realize that sacred spaces we find in church buildings are subconcious touchstones each week. We may not have acknowledged before the ways that entering church spaces calm us, take us outside of linear time, and connect us to the holy. This a new experience and realization for me. For my adult life till now, I have tried (and sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed) to create sacred spaces in school gymnasiums and senior centers and multi-purpose rooms as part of emergent church/progressive evangelical church communities. I had not had the experience of having a dedicated, quiet, already-built and not needing set-up and take-down space since I was a child. And as a child, the spiritual community I was a part of was not liturgical. My first years, at a very large nondenominational evangelical church, my memories of the environment are based on decor, not altars or spiritually significant spaces. There was a sanctuary, which was a purple-brown upholstery and a gray carpeted stage with lights, a large wooden cabinet was present for the once monthly communion Sundays, but It wasn’t a focal point for worship. There were no windows, and it was always a little dim, like a theater. There were large octagon shaped stained glass portraits, one I think of the Good Shepherd. High up on the walls to the side of the stage. You had to turn a light on behind the glass to make it glow. The bathrooms were decorated in the same mauve and gray. At the Baptist church we attended for several years, there was a connection somehow to the outdoors. This was because the sanctuary was smaller. There were stained glass windows, there were trees just outside and the windows could open. On a summer Sunday evening service, the windows let in a breeze. The rafters were curved and took on the shape of the ark, like we were huddled inside the overturned boat.

When we entered the church we attend now, it was a new experience. Everything seemed to rest together there, inside that room. All the parts to make meaning. The stained glass above the altar was a strange image. Our family would joke about it, not knowing what it was. We were new at so much in the Episcopal setting, the words were new, the standing and sitting, the passing of the peace. All so new. So we chuckled that we couldn’t even tell what the picture in the stained glass was. We came to the agreement that it was a magnolia grandiflora. Large white petals disjointed with spaces of yellow, black, red in between. We learned later that it was supposed to be the empty tomb. It will always be a flower I think to our eyes.

I have been playing with this essay since the first Sunday church was cancelled due to the pandemic. I’ve been reflecting on our family’s journey. How my creating sacred spots at home was an action I took in response to a yearning I felt: For the liturgical color. For a place where layers of meaning rest together. A space for God. Now, the sacred spot is the spot we make at the coffee table to say our morning prayer on Sundays with our Holy Cross friends. And it is still also in the corner of the mantle-I pick fresh flowers, light the candle. Say a prayer. We are in such a deep, dark Lent this year.

I have so many reflections and wonderings about all this-more to come.

Watercolors

This project ending up being my favorite part of advent this year. It defined and grounded the season for me and now I have all these little paintings to use for sacred spots in years to come.

Advent Watercolor Project

This year, for advent, I’m painting a small watercolor everyday. I’ve been sitting at the dining room table, lighting the advent candle and enjoying this sacred spot as a creative spot. Making art during advent has been a spiritual practice for me for many years. For many, the cold weather and dark evenings make the winter months the time of year creative pursuits. I remember when I visited the island of Iona in Scotland there was a little garage/open studio and in the description the artist wrote about the rhythm of island life, working hard during the light and warmth of the year and in the winter making jewelry, working with wool, enjoying the quiet and dark.

In years past I’ve painted the friendly beasts (with such love!), written poems, made a bunch of mistletoe out of paper and beads, made jewelry or even just simply sat and strung seed beads on a thread to make garlands. The purpose for me was to have a meditative activity to settle and center myself during a time that can take on a blurriness of busy, spendy excess.

The Colors

The first fabrics I used for my sacred spot at home were 4 pieces of hemmed muslin with some moth eaten holes and some candle wax drops here and there. I had found them in a box of extra Godly Play supplies in a closet: one red, one green, one purple, one white. These were the colors of the year and I was glad to have these well-used and then long-stored cloths. I have no idea what altars or focal tables they might have graced, our supplies were a hodge podge of donated items. But they were the beginning for me of bringing these colors into my home. I had a few green and white linens, but not a single purple or red one! As I was trying to bring the liturgical colors into my home, these simple cloths were my only cues to start with. First, the green growing time, ordinary time. Most of the year was this. Growth in the ordinary, the color that became so familiar it was like a neutral, like the way grass and trees become the neutral color when you are outside. Then the purple, not my favorite color, so it felt intentional when i brought that color out. I played with the tones, but that first piece was a dark plum color that feels like churchy purple to me. Serious. Expectant. Royal. Then the white, for pure celebration. The “pure” white had some holes and matchstick marks, and I very soon began to play with this color, feeling icky about white being the color of “pure celebration”. That stuck in my throat. Wanting to get away from that tradition, but caring about the colors led me to bring in gold as my color of pure celebration. Gold, a traditional celebration color alongside white, I began to use just gold instead. A color that reminds me of sparkling stars, gleaming moonlight on the water, precious metal, dazzling autumn leaves, the glowing pollen center of a flower, the eye of a wolf, the soft fur of a dog or cat.

And then, RED. For just a week of the year is it up at my house, the week we celebrate Pentecost-hot hot hot! For some reason, this color in this context is funny and hot and weird and bizarro. And all that really does fit. The muslin piece I first had was a very dark plain red. I was quick to add yellow and orange and even a little blue to make the color more like FIRE when we pull it out.

Those are the colors of the year. In those colors, I like to find every color, but from them I take my cues and play with their meanings and their moods. The liturgical colors are ones that the sacred spot’s underlays reflect, but also sometimes it’s just in the house or found in nature and brought to the spot to remember the time we are in.

The Underlay

Batik for Lent

In Godly Play, a contemplative church school curriculum rooted in storytelling, the underlay is an important part of the story experience. Stories are told using objects to help anchor and invite all listening into deeper experience. Those objects are placed on an underlay that changes depending on the needs of the stories, or the seasons of the year. The holy family sits upon an underlay that changes with the season, the parable stories sit upon mysterious underlays that give clues-a large white circle for The Great Pearl, a green square for The Good Shepherd. And the underlays for some are just a nicety, let’s put something down to help us know we’re telling a story, to set the table for the communal experience of enjoying a story together.

For sacred spots at home, the underlay does all of this. As the sacred spot at home concept for me flows from the focal table concept of Godly Play, the underlay serves all the above mentioned roles: bringer of seasonal color, clue-giver and stage-setter for a special place.

I like to use batik printed cloth for this because it is full of color variation and complexity and that simple feature reminds us of how life is life no matter what season we are in. The church may be in a solemn season of lent, but there might be a wedding day. The purple cloth has it’s yellow and pink peeking through. The church may be deep in the joy of eastertide when a loved one dies or personal sadness feels strong. The grays are real in all that white and gold. Sometimes I layer the cloths, sometimes I do use plain cotton broadcloth in purple, white, red or green to be the underlay of underlays. Layering small pieces with more variation.

The underlay also delineates the space. This helps when the sacred spot is on a long shelf with other things, or on the dining room table. It makes a space for your space.

As the first step of the storytelling, it is also the first step of building the sacred spot. Laying out the cloth or changing the cloth can be a meditative opportunity to reflect on the season, the moment and the concept of literally making space for God in your home.

The Image

This is usually a focal point of the home altar. Sometimes, it’s a piece of sacred art depicting Jesus. For me, most often a depiction of Jesus is the focal point of my altar. Sometimes the image is of something else entirely. Photographs of loved ones on their birthdays, print outs of art representing Saints we celebrate, sometimes kid art or my own.

Your home altar can be a spot to meditate on and explore different images of Jesus. This is a place to wrestle with the sacred images we are used to. Not to always have the same one, or the one we are most comfortable with. In the same way that we are always expanding our language, impressions and experiences of God, this is a place to also explore the image of God. Find images of black Jesus, brown Jesus, Jesus who is feminine or androgynous.

Sacred Spots at Home

One practice that has sustained me for many years is making altar spaces at home. These little spots have been touch stones for me, anchoring me to my location in the liturgical calendar, and the natural world. I started an instagram account for these little spaces and you can follow along @sacred_spots_at_home for glimpses.

I’ve wanted to start the blog on this site since I began it, but wasn’t sure how to jump in. Lots of introduction? Tackling a topic? Essays? Poems? Instead of any of that, I’m just getting this out there. I think I was inspired to start the instagram account to share ideas for these altars and building blocks of creating them. So I’m thinking of this blog space as a longer form companion to that.