Continuation of “Living in a World in Which Nothing Is Sacred” ......

Premodern human beings believed in sacred things and sacred places. There might be a rock, a tree, a river or a temple that was sacred. Within the tribe, and even within an individual's home, there was a sacred corner in which one could become united with something higher than oneself.

Over time, one interpretation of religion first claimed that because everything is God's creation, everything is sacred. In truth, this became the first desacralisation of the world, because if everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred. The spirits of sacred stones disappeared. Sacred forests were emptied of their fairies. The spirits of the ancestors left the earth. Legends became stories emptied of truth, and a dry formalism came to dominate the human spirit. Image was defeated by word, and magic was erased from the page of life.

Is this dry and formal world really the world we desire? A world in which we no longer need to care for anything? A world in which nothing is more valuable than anything else? A world without spirit and empty of everything sacred? A world with no mystery and no fairies, in which anything that is not scientific is treated as false and worthless?

Nothing sacred exists in such a world because the sacred is not a scientific matter. It is intensely personal, receiving its value from our attention and care. We have said yes to a world in which nothing is supposed to be greater or higher than what is visible to the eye.

What about you? Do you still believe in something sacred in your life? Do you still know a sacred place to which you can return? Is there something, someone or an idea you love so deeply that it becomes sacred to you? Is there still room in your world for the enchantment of stories and immersion in unknown beauty? Have you left any place for yourself in your own world?

And again the original question: how do you see the effect of this disenchanted world, empty of the sacred, on your everyday life?

Aydin Areta
November 2019