The Sacred and the Scared - Part 3

Two very different places, Croagh Patrick and Kylemore Abbey Cathedral.  Two very different experiences, minutes of quiet peace and hours of torturous danger.  Two different words, sacred and scared.  How do these things related to each other?  Do they have anything in common?  Are they nothing more than two places, two thoughts and two words arbitrarily thrown together by a raving cathedral-visiting-hill-climbing-lunatic?  We'll see. You can decide.

In my recent trip to Ireland, I was struck by the deep spirituality which is an integral part of Irish history and culture.  When visiting places like Loughcrew, Knowth, or Newgrange, one cannot help but see indicators of  some type of neolithic belief in life after death.  The Hill of Tara gives evidence of a strong connection between the invisible and visible worlds.  St. Patrick comes onto the scene with his Roman view of spirituality which impacts both secular and religious spheres, while Clonmacnoise reveals the further formalization of a  systematic understanding of things eternal.

A small caveat here: when I use the term "spiritual" I am speaking about things eternal and super-natural.  By super-natural, I mean, outside or "above" the natural order of things, what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch.  I guess "metaphysical" fits here but it is a $10.00 word. I am much more comfortable with most words under $5.00.  They fit my budget better.  When I use the term "religious" or "religion", I am referring to humanity's systematization (thought) and rituals (practice) of trying to understand or interact with the spiritual realm or metaphysical plane.

What does this have to do with two very popular tourist sites?  I think these sites represent people's approach to connecting with what some might call the "divine" or "spiritual".

Sometimes it seems more "natural" for some to seek the spiritual in a place like cathedral.  This seems to be the normal response to a "Religiously" trained mind, which says this is the place to seek what is "other" or "eternal".  Like the Jews of ancient time, the "temple" is the "dwelling place of the Name".  This concept  of "temple-dwelling-deity" has carried over figuratively, and in some cases literally, into other religions.

While others believe it is more "natural" to seek the spiritual in nature.  Thus making places like Croagh Patrick the focus of pilgrimage no matter how daunting or difficult.  In some cases, the more difficult it is the more "holy" or sacred it seems to become.  This connection with nature has caused some to espouse the notion "nature is my religion".  This is a  quote I discovered while hiking on an a remote island in the Great Lakes area of the States.  If I am reading the ancient texts of Christianity correctly, this idea is affirmed by the Apostle Paul when he declares what may be known about the character and qualities of God is apparent and obvious from nature.

Irish philosopher and writer, John O'Donohue says, "The Celtic mind was neither discursive nor systematic.  Yet in their lyrical speculation, the Celts brought the sublime unity of life and experience to expression.  The Celtic mind was not burdened by dualism.  It did not separate what belongs together.  The Celtic imagination articulates the inner friendship that embraces Nature, divinity, underworld, and human world as one. The dualism that separates the visible from invisible, time from eternity, the human from the divine was totally alien to them.  Their sense of ontological friendship yielded a world of experience imbued with a rich texture of otherness, ambivalence, symbolism, and imagination.  For our sore and tormented separation, the possibility of this imaginative and unifying friendship is the Celtic gift."                                 From, Anam Cara - A Book of Celtic Wisdom

I believe that the sacred and the scared, the Kylemore and the Croagh, the cathedral and the mountain must be struck as two different sides of the same coin.  There may seem to be a tension between these apparently polar opposites.  However, a more holistic, fuller life may be lived by joining together the very things our modern mind and culture have labored to separated.

The raw unfiltered demands of scaling a mountain seems appropriate to experience the divine.  The roaring wind and pounding hail, endless rocks and bone-wearying exertion seem to fit a Moses-like experience of an audience with the Eternal Other.  The herculean effort makes sense to achieve entrance into another plane of experience.  However, there are no barriers.  There are no controls.  There are no safety zones.  There is no shelter.  This is what makes one scared.  One must deal with one's fears on the mountain.  It is that fear that keeps us away from the mountain.  It is that fear that makes it "Other".  It is what it is.  You must take it as it is.  You must take it as it comes.  The only thing between you and the divine, in this scenario, is your clothing.  Very clearly, you are not in-charge here.

To enter the cathedral one merely opens the door.  Be the door large or small, the effort is virtually the same.  The effort to enter the presence of the divine in this venue is a walk, a twist, and a push.  So simple, so easy, a child could do it.  No special training or preparation is required.  All of the effort came centuries before in the chiseling and the carrying, in the measuring and the mortaring,  in the sweat and the blood.  It was other's efforts that made this approach so easy.  We enter this human made sanctuary which provides the shelter from nature's upheavals and extremes.  It holds back the hail and the rain.  It stops the cold of the wind and the heat of the sun.  It pushes back the pain, for it is a house deigned and built by love.  And love makes an audience with the eternal easier and more palatable for the masses.  Some might say, it was a better marketing strategy than the mountain.  For love clothes the eternal in a beauty that reverberates in our souls.

The barriers are in place.  The safety zone wide. Security is at a premium here. And yet to enter this sacred place, to step into this type of quiet is, in fact, disquieting to our souls.  The fear on the mountain has been replace by discomfort.  One is unsettled first before one comes to peace.  The beauty and dignity of this human construction seems appropriate somehow to clothe the presence of the Other.  It seems when everything is held at bay, one's soul is exposed.  When the distractions are stripped away, the nakedness of our soul, and possibly the poverty of our spirits, seem evident to the world as well as to us.  As if we were an Emperor, whose wondrous fashions have been declared null and void by a small child.

Both places, both extremes, help us, maybe even compel us towards the starting line of understanding.  The search for the eternal, the divine must begin somewhere.  The soul is the great resonator of all things super-natural, for the soul itself is eternal. The soul also helps us to see what is behind or "under" the natural as well.  Rightly held together, we discover a much larger world in which to live.  It is this fuller, richer life that Celtic Wisdom understood long ago.

So I would encourage us, me really, to climb the mountain (done that), enter the cathedral (done that), and discover the unfathomable riches that all of life, both natural and super-natural has for us (working on that).