Three Types of Sacred Moments
Notice The Sacredness of Togetherness
I once prayed in a teeny-tiny roadside chapel, in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin. It looked like it was built for Hobbits. Three people could fit in there — max. It was adorable.
I once chanted inside an Armenian cave that served as a primitive cathedral for early Christians in the region thousands of years ago.
I once ate butter and salt filled casseroles, as part of a funeral celebration, in the brick-walled basement of a Midwestern Protestant church, surrounded by perfumed middle-aged women and blue-collared men adorned in oversized, rarely-worn suits.
I once had a deeply sacred experience reading a Ralph Waldo Emerson paperback in the woods of Connecticut on a chilly early spring day.
I once felt something close to transcendence as the sun warmed my neck while I sat in a great cathedral of American sports and watched my favorite baseball team win on an unforgettable Sunday afternoon.
I have had so many sacred moments in my life. And they’ve happened in a wide variety of places with a wide variety of people.
Think about the most sacred moments of your life.
Seriously… try to think of a few of the moments in your life that felt sacred or holy or blessed…. whatever those words mean to you. Make your own list.
O.K., I’m going to reveal something to you… Ready?
There is a really good chance those holy moments happened in one of three categories.
The first category of sacred moments are what one might call Ritual moments.
So you might be thinking of moments that fall into the ritual category. These are like weddings or religious ceremonies or funerals or the like. These are wonderful. There are often candles and incantations. There are sometimes songs and ancient practices that connect us to history and ancestors. I love rituals.
My wedding day was deeply sacred. It was a Ritual Moment. My wife and I wrote our own ceremony — it was officiated by her father. My dad and her brother both played guitar and sang songs during the ceremony. Our families were a central part of a ritual experience that we’ll never forget.
The second category of sacred moments are what somebody might call Private moments.
I’ve had some of these. Moments alone in the wilderness. Moments alone at sacred sites. Moments alone in prayer and contemplation. Moments alone that have been filled with a deep sense of love, or a spiritual vision, or an overwhelming feeling of holiness surrounding you. These private sacred moments are wonderful.
And the third category of sacred moments is the one I’m most interested in… it’s one that not enough people have enough of in their life. This category is something that I’ve realized people are longing for but they feel like they’ve lost the ability to create them. I call these… “Sacred Connection moments.”
These are deep conversations that seem to transcend time and space. These are human to human experiences that seem to include some third party, some spiritual presence. These are conversations and interactions that leave you changed somehow.
These connection moments don’t have to include conversations about God or beliefs or religion. It’s not about the content, it’s about the quality of connection and the openness to let a sacred and ancient spiritual essence fill the space between you and lift up your interaction into a higher realm of meaning.
There’s this blatant example of a Sacred Connection moment in a story found in Luke’s gospel about two disciples walking along the road to a village named Emmaus.
The two characters in the story are just walking along, talking about all the hub-bub and high drama that had been going on in Jerusalem — this takes place on the day of Jesus’s resurrection.
As they’re walking and talking — so the story goes — Jesus appears alongside them. They don’t recognize him. In the midst of their conversation, a risen Christ shows up. God is present alongside them in the middle of their conversation while walking along a dusty road.
And they don’t notice.
We are so much more tuned into God’s presence and spirit when we’re in a Ritual Moment where we expect holiness or even a Private Moment when we can more easily hear God’s voice in the silence. But in Connection Moments —God can show up there too — we just often miss it.
This is why we created BETWEEN. This is what we want to help millions of people all over the world feel more often.
I want to help people feel the sacredness of their togetherness. I want to encourage people to notice the holiness of the simplest moments of interaction. I want to help people know that the space between us is sacred — no matter where we are — we just have to be tuned into the holy potential of those moments.
When we see our simple everyday conversations as sacred, it can be transformative. In the story of The Road To Emmaus, the two travelers eventually invite the mysterious stranger to stay with them for the evening. As they broke bread for dinner, suddenly their eyes were opened. They realized what was actually happening. The simple act of breaking bread revealed to the two travelers who their dinner guest actually was. In a revelatory moment they discovered how sacred their conversation had truly been.
May we notice the importance of each moment we share together. For in the space BETWEEN us, God is there. Amen.
A BLESSING FOR YOUR WEEK
May we notice the importance of each moment we share together. For in the space BETWEEN us, God is there. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION
1. Do you think you ever have sacred moments that you don't even notice?
2. What do your beliefs teach you about what makes something, some moment, or some encounter "sacred"?
3. In what ways does our larger society keep us from noticing the sacredness around us?
4. How will you actively pay attention to the sacredness of the moments in your life this week?