The word “sacred” is done to death. The word is bandied about with what seems like very little spiritual ballast to help us access it these days.

As I have come to understand sacred space, it is a place we carve out to commune with ourselves and with Spirit. Or more accurately perhaps, the Spirit within ourselves. Or, as in some traditions, a Higher Power.

Now there’s a lot of assumption going on right there. “Communing with Spirit” is off-putting to many. You can’t taste it, hear it or see it. Not with our physical senses at any rate. But open yourself up and you can surely feel it.

There are two reasons why a call to sacred communion is off-putting, I believe. Connecting with “Spirit” assumes you believe there is “One.” You must also believe that “Spirit” is available to you and willing to spend time with you. (Who am I, we may ask, for Spirit to talk to lowly me?)

The second reason it is often off-putting is that notions of Spirit are fragmented and compartmentalized in our lives today. Where do we even go to connect with “Spirit” if we believe in one? Church? Or a synagogue or a mosque? Somewhere where someone in fancy clothes with elevated connections to “Spirit” grants us access?

Here’s the thing. What I believe is that Spirit is an inherent part of “who we are.” It is universal and inborn in every one of us and is included with membership in the human race. That other stuff – the fancy garments and learned sermons – is a form of religious theater.

It is vitally important to some people. The dogma of church and religious teachings grounds many people in their lives and guides their actions. I have no quarrel with that. But I will say it is likely a little narrow in terms of what Spirit actually is and does.

I don’t care how much one studies or learns or how old and wise they get, the fundamental mysteries of life remain fundamentally mysterious. No one to my knowledge has cracked the code of how Earth came to be in the form it is and what it does.

There are no answers to devolving the “miracle of birth,” except from a strictly scientific and biological perspective. And let’s admit it. That comes up a little short in the “explanation” department.

So today I was touched once again by the teachings of my dear old friend Joseph Campbell (in my mind’s eye only; I never met the man.) He talked about the crucial need to create a sacred space in our lives. His prescription was to carve out a space or even maybe an hour a day to do nothing.

No chores. No phone calls. No conversations. Nada. Just focused me time. To play your favorite music (no matter how bad it is in the opinion of others.) To go inward. To write perhaps. To just be. And see what comes up.

Hah. Nice try with a quasi-OCD, Type A, get ‘er done kinda gal. But I am working on it. And I have experienced sacred spaces and places before. Sustaining them seems to be an issue.

Joe Campbell says it is important to carve out sacred space for ourselves now because our capitalist system focusses almost exclusively on social and economic activities. When First Nations roamed North America, they inherently understood that everything about them was sacred. The land, the skies, all of nature.

They acted accordingly. No wonder they were such a threat to the invading white Europeans. Europeans “triumphed,” in fact, because, they had little to no sense of spiritual relationship to the land and nature. What a high price we have all paid for that disconnect.

Spirit lives in all of us. It may be dormant or temporarily absent or out dealing with some other poor schmuck who has appealed to it for succour. We can disconnect from “Spirit” through our deeds and words. But it is never dead, dead.

I believe Spirit supports and encourages life and loving. Our worldly pursuits may cause us to lose track of that fact. In my healing journey, I often said, I abandoned myself, but god (as I choose to call Spirit) never did. When I was acting contrary to the laws of love and connection, the disconnect was painfully evident.

It is how I understand clinical depression. A disconnect with the essence and vitality of who we really are. Sure, part of it may be brain chemistry. (Who devised that in the first place is the obvious question?) But Spirit heals from within.

Great spiritual leaders have always know that and preach about it. Religious leaders? Well, it depends on how spiritually driven their beliefs and actions are. Among the best I ever knew was Rev. John Hogman. John was half of the ministerial tag team at Fairfield United Church in Victoria, BC with his wife, Rev. Michelle.

John’s sermons were consistently marked by his ability to connect the relationship between the scripture Jesus Christ proselytized and our everyday life. A song that was popular when Rev. John was on the planet was Joan Osborne’s One of Us: “What if God was one of us … just a slob like one of us … just a stranger on the bus … tryin’ to make his way home.”

So it would appear I need to tune up my Spirit communion skills. To carve out serious “me time.” To move more into the camp of human “being” instead of human “doing.” To reacquaint myself with a sense of awe, joy and wonder.

Because after all the money has been earned, the lectures have been delivered, the books written or read, what else is there??

Spirit and the Great Mystery. Even if I don’t “know” what the heck it is.