Holy Places
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by Nancy Eggert
Thousands of names echo in solemn recitation across the barren pit. Swirling dust encircles the grieving survivors, settling on bouquets left in memory. The world watches. We recognize the first anniversary of 9/11 at Ground Zero. Some speak of their travel to this place as a pilgrimage--a sacred journey to holy ground, a journey with the potential for power and transformation. It is probably too early to discern whether history will claim the site of the World Trade Center in Manhattan or the Pentagon or the blackened field in Pennsylvania as permanent pilgrimage destinations. I wonder how a place of violence and evil can be a sacred place, a window into the Divine Presence.I am cautioned by Gil Bailie, in his book Violence Unveiled, about the fate of many other tombs: "How casually and habitually the tombs of victims are turned into sacred justifications for more victimization." Bailie cites a notice posted by Nagorno-Karabakh partisans in Armenia in 1992, "All those who hold dear the graves of our ancestors, our churches and our holies, must sow terror on the foe." I ponder how places of violence and suffering and betrayal can be appropriated as sacred sites that will heal and empower us rather than serve as a springboard for more violence and suffering and betrayal.
I remember a classic benediction, "Whatever good you have done or evil you have endured..." it begins. Whatever you have endured, whatever you have suffered, may it bring you closer to the One who loves us. It is too early for me to grasp the significance of the evil endured at Ground Zero or surmise what blessing might arise from the dust. We dare not tell those who suffered losses on September 11 how they should respond to their personal tragedies. But if we ventured forth, at least in our imagination, to those ordinary places where we each have endured evil, experienced suffering and betrayal at the hands of others, might we explore whether such places could be valid pilgrimage sites?
I invite you to travel with me, not to anything of the magnitude of a 9/11, at least not at first, but to the personal, the mundane, the pathetic, the tawdry evil that comes our way, to see whether these places of suffering might be thin places where God's presence shines through and reveals the sacred in the midst of life, whether we might discover windows into the Eternal Presence where true peace is found.
Perhaps choose a place, an event in your life where the hard edges of bitterness and cynicism have been worn away by the passage of time. Then, following the rubric of a pilgrim encountering a cathedral, prayerfully and attentively circle this sacred interior site three times in your imagination. In the first revolution, I keep my distance. I recall the time and place, the actors, the unfolding of events. What is significant will surface and be revealed. Observe and notice. No need to judge. I circle again for a closer look. Confusion, dizziness, insecurity and fear swirl about. I see frailty--my own and others. Events have lurched out of control. A violent wind sweeps us in a direction we do not want to go. On a third and closer circumnabulation, more is made plain: someone was afraid, got into a bind, perhaps a shameful situation, or was the object of others' abuse and anger. One thing led to another. People are hurt, relationships severed, good work destroyed.
Having circled my pilgrim destination three times, I stop to rest under a tree before entering the cathedral itself. Can I view this scene through God's eyes of love and compassion? What would that mean? Don't Forgive Too Soon is both the title of a book and good advice. This is no time for cheap sentimentality. Evil is real. Evil destroys. Evil must be resisted. Only God's loving power can destroy evil, but do not be tempted into complicity through inertia or inaction.
I enter the cathedral and kneel for a blessing -- what kind of blessing I know not. Wait expectantly. You never know when anything is going to happen on a pilgrimage, where or how the blessing will be offered -- perhaps later, much later. Reconciliation? Forgiveness? Peace, the courage to try again, wisdom? What will I ask for?
To what holy place are you being summoned? Where are those special places of deep meaning--and renewal and transformation--for you? In what unlikely place--perhaps where you have suffered violence and betrayal--will you find your center, the peace that you have almost forgotten? What blessing will you ask for--whatever good you have done or evil you have endured? What blessing will we ask for our planet?
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.