Down in the Holy Place
Day 1
Hi friend. It’s Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, and we are beginning 40 days of reading Buechner’s The Remarkable Ordinary together. If you missed it yesterday, you may want to read my welcome letter before you read today’s passage, which is taken from the introduction to the book.
“I am haunted now as I never was before by the sense that we all of us have the mark of God’s thumb upon us. We have the image of God within us. We have a holy place within us that gets messed up in a million ways. But it’s there, and more and more I find myself turning inward toward that and trying to learn how to be quiet. Someone once gave me a book called Creative Silence, and I thought, Oh, that’s just what I need.
“So I’m writing, I suppose, hoping to get another few steps in that direction, toward turning off the eternal chatter, the endless dialogue that goes on inside most of us. Or at least, I can speak only for myself, to stop those words and just to exist somehow in the fullness and unspeakableness of the present and to let whatever is down in the holy place drift up.”
Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, p13.
To help you reflect…
How do you imagine the holy place within you? What might it look like, feel like, sound like, smell like? In what ways has it become messed up in you?
Take some time to be quiet and become present. You can either close your eyes and gently notice and release any thoughts or images as they come or you can offer your attention to what is happening in front of you or around you (if you find becoming present difficult, getting outside may help).
Allow yourself simply to exist for a while and give whatever is down in the holy place a chance to drift up. What do you sense is being offered to you from that holy place within?
My inner holy place within is quiet and spacious; expansive. It is not silent totally. I am placing gentle attention on turning down “radio garbage”! It’s a process. So happy to be part of this group!
I used to have endless chatter, most of it negative now it's so quiet I often wonder if my brains fell out all together. But nope it's there, just kinder and quieter and more spacious. That's what my holy inner chapel is like. Kind, quiet, spacious. I like to visit frequently!