Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache. – C.S. Lewis
That old ache within us is a longing to be whole. Complete. Fulfilled. Something is missing and we must find it. Nature, along with the soul, abhors a vacuum.
And so we refuse to stay still. We move toward anything and everything that bears any semblance of fulfillment. The shallow things of this world like fame, fortune, power, and pleasure capture our initial attention, but over time we realize that they fail to bring us into the quality of being that we long to experience.
We then find ourselves inexplicably drawn to what is deeper than things the ego is capable of grasping. The soul begins to guide us us. And lead us. Toward truth, meaning, purpose, and worth. We long to be known. Understood. Valued. Loved.
To find such things, we search for sacred spaces – places where the soul can attune itself to these things and the ego’s incessant voice fades into silence.
Such spaces are hard to find, and so we make travel plans to reach them. In the Old Testament Scriptures, the Jewish temple in Jerusalem became the most sacred space of all – the place where God himself dwelled – primarily in the Holiest of Holy Places, between the angels atop the mercy seat that covered the Ark of the Covenant.
But over time things went wrong. The Ark disappeared. The temple became a legalistic sacrificing machine in the inner courts and a greedy and smelly marketplace designed to take advantage of visitors in the outer.
A pilgrim from afar off, taking days to travel in hopes of finding and experiencing the sacred in his soul, would catch a glimpse of the golden temple’s unmistakable pinnacle from miles away as he approached the city. He would hold his breath when stepping into the outer courts of the temple, only to have it immediately taken away by the smell of animal dung and barking businessmen seeking to exchange foreign currency for local, and local currency for animals required to sacrifice and “experience” God. The long-anticipated experience of stepping through the doorway from earth into heaven vanished. The pilgrim would then return home dejected with no experience in the long-sought sacred space.
That dejection is what many of us now face. Where, then, is our sacred space? Our axis mundi? The place where we can find what is right and escape what is wrong? Where we can find comfort and welcome from God and others?
There is a sacred space, and there is a doorway you can walk through to get there. Let’s open it right now.
Source Scripture
Spacing Out: Matthew 12:15-21; Mark 3:7-12
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras