Sanctity and So on...

It appeared to me to be a good Sunday topic, talking about the meaning of "sanctity." Of course the meaning is implicit for most people, to be holy or in a state of holiness. I suppose where it has become an enigma to me is in its implementation. How does one witness sanctity in the modern world? How does it manifest itself to the experiencer? Too often it seems we relegate the term to a feeling. This cathedral or that graveyard feels sacred, holy, sanctified. But those are mostly, if not entirely, feelings derived from the aesthetics. The gothic arches give one a sense of granduer or the solemn rows of the intered reflect a sense of mortality. But what, if anything, makes those places sacred? I think I may have hinted at it with the sense of mortality. They are places that are imbued, albeit artificially, with elements that reflect abstract concepts. I do not use the word artificially in a derogatory sense, I simply mean that pains were taken with the expressed intent to instill such emotional responses; cathedrals have vaulted ceilings which express as sense of the majestic and cemetaries have the still quality of carefully manicured nature, relgious symbols, and rows of names of those dearly departed.

I suppose the nature of my inquiry lies with the concept of the treatment of these locales, if that is indeed what makes them sacred. I know in the modern age the sense that any given area or space is sacred only because it is decreed so and that an inate respect for a space for that which it is, in itself, is held as an archaic belief. Too many churches or housed for the sick and dying leveled and turned into parking lots and convenience stores I suppose. But therein lies the problem. Even if spaces are holy or sacred only as they are made to be, how much more should we cherish and respect that place as it is in the moment. I do think the transiency of places takes a great deal from the matter though. Cathedrals are easy to recognize as special places partly because they have been there for so long, although you can see the difference in those who have been close to the throughout much of that time. Many of the European cathedrals I visited had quite the gift shop appeal to them in parts, but still, there was great respect to be had.

It is hard for us, I must suppose, to think of our concrete tilt-up buildings, stucco and sheet-rock, with replaceable carpet that comes and goes every ten years or so, as holy and precious places of worship. I am mulling this all over for myself simply as a way of dealing with current humanity's disregard for places they themselves commonly worship in. People seem free to clip nails, fix hair, play with babies, text friends, check messages, and generally hang out in a space we are meant to meet with a great and mighty God weekly. I understand that the modern church is a place for the community, for the people to inhabit and carry out their lives in fellowship and joy, but something in me still thinks some respect is missing, some bit of recognition of just what it is we are there to do that is not currently a part of people's church routine. Primarily the issue for me resides in the time in which the word of our Lord and Savior is being preached; a time like that seems hard to misunderstand and I think there is something at stake when we fail to place proper worth and respect to that which is so vitally important to us.