What makes the bible sacred?    How did the bible become sacred to us?    And why?   What makes anything sacred for that matter?   Is something “sacred” because we want it to be so?    Because we say it’s so?     Do our words make the magic happen?    

 Or are the properties of “Sacredness” inherent in the thing itself?   And it just remains for us to recognize that things' sacredness.     

I think the bible is many things…    one of the important ones is that it’s a record of a relationship between a people and their God.      It is a living record of this relationship… with a living God.    

I came to understand it this way because over the years I came to understand each life is the same thing -- a record of a relationship between us and our God -- that each of us is a sacred story!

I believe each life is a story.    Each life has within it a universe of possibilities.   It remains to see which story unfolds,  it remains for us – for the world – to hear  which story is told.    And when each life dies…  a universe dies with them.

When I learned to use my hands in energy healing    (as I’d say to others, “to pray with my hands”)     I learned to pay attention to the cues, to the changes I’d feel.   Some people think you go into some kind of trance or something...   like the movies or those shows.    Reality is different --- that never happens!    I’m in many ways pretty normal when I do this - just like all the other people I know who do this kind of thing as well.    I’m still pretty grounded in the world of the rational, the intellectual, the explainable…    the “normal” world of perception still indeed applies.  

But there’s another dimension to this too...  there’s an added layer of perception, a dimension that requires more attentiveness to activate.      It’s not “extra-sensory perception” as many sometimes think of it.    It’s strangely enough,   I’ve learned,    just another part of basic human perception…   a part of our perception we don’t usually exercise.   In fact we mostly ignore it  

When I do this,  when I do healing work in this way,   I’m just fine-tuning the perception I normally work with.    Like “tuning in” to a channel better (remember the old days with analog "tuning" -- like that).     I’m hearing…   only making more of an effort to listen. 

  

It's like being at a party...  a loud one...   and you’re talking with someone, and you want to hear that they have to say because it’s important to you, but it's pretty hard to hear, so you sit a little closer.   You look at their lips to help you, you do what you need to do to listen better.        

         And you use your hands        or your spirit

When I engage in conversation with people – socially, these conversations tend to fall under certain headings;       There’s the “general” type of conversations    – characterized maybe by friendliness and openness… if it’s a friend.    But for sure by logic and reason…     you know,    following the conversation…   thinking about what you are going to say…  where normal listening skills    and expected social norms   apply. 

  

Then there’s the other kind of conversation,    the kind of conversation I have to become aware is happening…   (and I don’t always do that)   I don’t always catch it for what it is…  but when I do…   I recognize it’s something special.

         It’s sometimes like reading the signs that have been right there all along, 

                  only you couldn’t see them because you weren’t looking in the right places.   

And once you get the signs, it’s like you’re following        an illumined path        that seems to unfold in front of you.     

I imagine it’s like what Moses felt when he stood before the burning bush…   

     

        “Take off your sandals.. .  you’re standing on Holy Ground…”  

              I can’t imagine he had to be told…    Holy Ground….     

                                It sort of reveals itself….   It unfolds…  

In normal circumstances...     in normal conditions…    

           it’s easier to grab onto judgement…                   

   easier to hold onto prejudice – to your own conceptions of what reality should or shouldn’t be…                  it’s easier to stick to your position – to harden your stance, whatever that happens to be…. 

But in these…   “not-normal circumstances”…   

         listening in this way seems to open doors of compassion – not judgement  

                 opens paths to connection – not hardening one's position.     

The “story”  the other person is telling     

          that story       has a life of its own…        

                                   it stands on its own right…     

              it's not something that needs to be

                                        molded      

                                                    shaped

                                                                folded

                                                                          bent

                                                                                 or   manipulated

      Instead…      it’s     unpacked     

                                                    unveiled         

                                                                   revealed          

                                                                                    standing clear   

                                                 in the sanitizing sunlight of life        

                            with a life of its own    

       breathing its own breath         

Being itself for sure…  able to move and speak on its own….    

                     

                                But not independent… of who it belongs to…  

Not so much like how we Americans call things we admire…   

               things of strength, 

              of isolated courage, 

              facing change with a set jaw, 

              hands on hips… 

              bravely 

                     – without fear – 

                                          facing the unknown!    

              Breaking a new trail through the unexplored WEST…    alone and without help!    

I mean…  our story, whether partially revealed or not     

                      indeed has a life of its own…                         

                                             but it doesn’t stand alone,      

                                             
             but with us…     with us…    

                              with who we think we are…    

                                        and who our story is revealing to us…   

It’s not independent from us…    but really…     a part of us…    

                A part of us that touches God’s hand better than we can – 

                                        like Adam  stretching out his hand to God  on the wall of the Sistine chapel.  It’s that part of us that sees angels with eyes more attuned to things like that

It’s that part of us that sees where the veil between this world and the other is thinner…                                                      and there are places like that….     and times like that 

   

Our “story”…     

                   our sacred story…    

            talks to us    shares with us…   reveals itself to us…          

                                    …and we to it!         

We’ve all spend at least some times in space like that --

                

                                          Holy Ground    

         places and times where a spell had been cast maybe…   

                                 a spell that made us recognize – this isn’t “ordinary”!               

       

          But yet… a spell that,     in retrospect       
                      makes us wonder…  

                                      

             “maybe this is just as ordinary…   
                                     just as part of reality as any other time?”     

Sometimes it is the most ordinary times…    

                                the most mundane times…    

                               where we walk through that veil unaware…           

                               and there it is…   

                                                       Holy Ground    

And we listen with differently ears…    again….

In the dark   

                    the last dog walk for the day   

        in that open public space    

                        sometimes I find myself listening…    

                                    listening for the spirits in the air      

                             listening for the whispers of the stars      

walking on the earth...

                      and trying to feel the vibrations of the earth through my feet.   

In the morning   

   standing on the grass

               looking east – where the sun is born… 

     listening for the first message the day might have to offer…       

or  maybe seated at the table…  

looking out the window at the growing light,     

              listening for the birthing cry of the new day….

Oh Lord… help us listen…    
           help us recognize when we stumble into    
                                                                                   onto        
                                     Sacred Ground…     

       Help us recognize          
                                                              ...and listen

This kind of listening is the difference 

            between

                                    Words…   and putting words to music

                Between 

                                        Prose…     and poetry

                Between 

                               telling someone what you do….    

                                         and sharing with them who you are

I believe each life has a story to tell – 

              a story that reveals itself as much to the liver of that story as to the world itself…   

        a story that lives and breathes within that person

   a story that has to be listened to –

I believe in the poetry of life     –   

                                                        a poem that has to be listened-to with different ears

                                               a poem that shifts

                                                                                       and bends

   

                             that sometimes screams its presence in the world 

                                                                – in the liver of that poem

                                  

     And sometimes      it      just     sits    

                  waiting to be listened to    

                          waiting patiently to be listened to

I believe in the sacredness of life…    

                      and the sacred ears we sometimes need to listen for it

Listening for the moment              

                        listening in the moment

    In this listening…      God is there      God is there      

I hear stories 

         stories of life…    

                                                                         and I think of life!         

                          And God!                                                     

                                                          And the Holy!     

                    I hear stories...

                                                     and I take off my shoes…