Making Home a Sacred Space

All of us who don’t work at hospitals or grocery stores or such are spending a LOT more time at home right now than usual. Thank you to all of you who are working to keep life going, and thank you to all of you who are staying home to keep us safe.

When we are at home so much our home space has to somehow do all the things; it is a restaurant, playground, library, school, gym and office. These days I am leading worship from my home, and the congregation is gathering by Zoom from their homes. Whenever we do that, it becomes our sacred space -- just by our coming together, just by our intention to make it so. “Sacred” means set aside. It means finding a time and place to remember what is most important to us, to remember the spirit, to remember our deepest self.

When the same space is also your office, hangout and guest room, I find it helps to prepare my space to help me remember that it is sacred. When I lead worship from my home I clear all my bills and other work off my desk, and I light a candle to help cultivate that quality of set aside time.

I find that it also helps me to have a set-aside space for my spiritual practice as well. Right next to my desk, I have a little cushion and a table- piled with all my books of meditation and poetry. Behind it is our guest bed which I threw a bedspread over to help my meditation spot feel special. It takes up just a couple feet of space, but as soon as I go to that spot, my body and mind immediately start to unwind, start to get ready to meditate or read or journal or just be quiet.

One of the books on that table is “Meditations” by Thomas Moore, who was a monk for many years. He helped me realize that we could imagine “sheltering at home” as our own private monastery. He wrote:

“withdrawal from the world is something we can, and perhaps should, do every day. It completes the movement of which entering fully into life is only one part, just as a loaf of bread needs air in order to rise, Everything we do needs an empty place in its interior. I especially enjoy such ordinary retreats form the active life as shaving, showering, reading, doing nothing, walking, listening to the radio, driving the car. All of these activities can turn off one’s attention inward to ward contemplation. Mundane withdrawal from the busyness of an active life can create a spirituality without walls, a spiritual practice ... At the sight of nothing, the soul rejoices” [p. l 4]

Do you have a space in your home that could be your sacred space? A place where you go to remember the sacred, to hear the still small voice within? Perhaps it could be a space that comes and goes as you need it- you could light a candle, or spread out a pretty cloth, or gather all your stuffed animals, to prepare your space in a way that says to you “this is a special time.” Whether we are in our church building, in a monastery or in our own room at home, the way we create sacred space, the most important way, is by setting aside some space in our minds and hearts. Make space for the spirit wherever you are sheltering today.