Message from the Pastor - Sacred Time

The church calendar is built on the idea of "sacred time" - ie, part of our walk with God is setting aside certain times to be or do certain things. Thus, we live a season of preparation and expectation in the four weeks leading up to Christmas; the Epiphany happens 12 days later, on January 6; and then we begin the cycles of fasting and penitence for Lent, and celebration for Easter.

As parents, we do something similar with the day, particularly when our children are younger: we break up the hours into chunks that hold different things - getting ready and eating breakfast, school and after school activities, and then evenings with bedtime routines. This helps kids feel like they have a sense of what to expect and what is expected of them.

Our Lenten season this year will have a focus not on sacred time, but rather on "sacred place." Reading through the gospels and the life of Jesus, it is quite clear that different places mean different things: Bethlehem is not Jerusalem; Jericho doesn't have the same stories as Nazareth. We will spend some time exploring the holy sites of the Holy Land in these ancient words.

The invitation for each of us, then, is to consider the "holy sites" of our own stories. Where has God met us? What street address (or addresses) hold our sense of belonging and home? Where have we faced danger, learned courage, or had to swallow our pride? Where have we grieved, and where have we celebrated?

When my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2019 and I was called back to the family farm to help care for him in his final days, I took the overnight shift in our family caregiving schedule. Never a nocturnal person, by the end of the week I was absolutely a mess for lack of sleep and the emotional exhaustion that such work demands (many of you know this very, very well.) My brother saw my condition early that morning, and took over for a couple of hours so I could go take a walk. I let my feet take me down the dirt roads around the farm - it hadn't been, and hasn't been, "home" for me for many years, but it is still a place of deep familiarity and rootedness, and I am more at ease walking the roads there than I am doing anything else.

My feet took me to the CRP ground south of our section where Dad had planted trees as part of a soil conservation program sometime back when I was in high school. The trees were well rooted by this point, and it was in the shade and solitude of these pasture pines that I finally let myself go and weep for the loss that was happening in real time in front of my eyes. I cried as I hadn't for a long, long time. Since then, every time I go back to the farm, I walk to the CRP ground with its trees.

Three years ago, I also started hiking back to the old sand pit at the very back of that same field of trees - a pit that has long since been neglected into wildness and has become a refuge for local wildlife. The sand that came out of that pit was the gravel that, in the 1930s and 40s, built the roads that I walk to get to the CRP field and sandpit. In my adulthood, this has become a sacred place. And the roads that lead me there are built of the same sand under my feet as I find when I arrive.

Lent is a sacred time in our church calendar, set aside for confession, repentance, and the work of repair. We need a place to do that work. The church is as good as anywhere to start, but I wonder for you: is that where it ends? If you let your feet take you to where the Spirit is leading, where might you find yourself? Is it the road, the destination, both, or something more that you need in this season?

Space is made sacred by what happens there - holy ground is hallowed by story. Pay attention to how you tell your stories - what places show up? What echoes of Jesus' story do you hear in your own life? And where are you called to find yourself when Easter comes, a few short weeks from now?

Blessings,

Rachel