Creating Sacred Space

The term, “sacred space” gets thrown around a fair bit these days- but what does it really mean? People talk about the chapel at St. John’s as a place of peace, somewhere they can go to get away from the chaos of classes and assignments to rest, reconnecting with God and themselves. Though God is everywhere, this particular space is sacred because it has been set apart since its inception to be place for people to meet the Holy One, bringing before God all their fears, anxieties, joys, and hopes.

Space, I believe, carries a story in the same way that a person does. Our chapel carries the story of connecting students with the Holy One, becoming a home for the wanderer, the doubter, and the lonely. In this space, people have celebrated their greatest joys and mourned their greatest losses. They have confessed their fears and expressed their hopes.

A sacred space also has a special gift for ushering us toward the holy, often by focusing us on our senses rather than our clambering thoughts. A labyrinth, for example, stimulates the right brain to give our logic-driven, overworked left brain a rest. It is the creative centre that enables us to enter into mystery. Candles, incense, icons and art can play similar roles.

Creating sacred space, however, is not just about setting apart a physical location and designing it for entry into prayer. The creation of space also means silence and stillness, room to hear the story of the other, to ask questions, to listen. It means having the freedom to doubt, to be afraid and be honest about wherever we find ourselves on our pilgrimage toward God.

In Christian community, making space means having room to wrestle with the grey areas of faith and being okay to show up with more questions than answers. It means welcoming the gay student who is struggling with his identity, being ok with noisy children during the service, and making room for people to move in and out of the community as they need to, both supporting them and letting them go. As we attempt to create sacred space in the St. John’s chapel for both our Christian brothers and sisters and others, it is my prayer that the physical space would merely be a sign of the many ways in which space is created and welcomed in our community.