Sanctuary
16/09/16 05:31
As a child, the word “sanctuary” meant a specific room. It was the place we worshipped at 1st Congregational Church in Big Timber, Montana. It was two blocks from my home and my family walked to church every Sunday. I don’t remember ever having a family conversation about church attendance. It was simply something that we did. The church had two parts: the original building housed the sanctuary and the pastor’s office. The addition had Sunday School rooms upstairs and a large fellowship hall downstairs. The sanctuary was remodeled sometime in my early teens, but as a child what I remember most are the hard wooden pews that had so many layers of furniture wax on them that you could fill your fingernails by just scratching the edge of the bench and the fact that our pastor wore a black robe.
As I grew towards adulthood, I realized that other churches had sanctuaries. I visited those of the Lutheran, Episcopal, Brethren and Church of God in our town and one year, when my father was moderator of the conference, we toured the other congregational churches in our state, traveling by car or airplane. I sat in a lot of sanctuaries that year.
Towards the end of my time in high school, I learned to broaden my concept of sanctuary to include the outdoor worship space at our church camp, where I participated in several very meaningful worship experiences. As my appreciation for outdoor spaces continued to grow, I found sanctuary in a number of spectacular vistas of the mountains of Montana. We would strap on our backpacks and hike away from other people and view gorgeous scenery. I could sense that “surely God is in this place” as I looked in awe and wonder.
In college my primary worship space was the church I attended on Sundays, but I also found sanctuary in the basement room where a college fellowship group, “The Rocky Road Scholars” met weekly. That group took occasional tours of congregations near the college, singing songs and offering prayers and liturgies, so I visited other sanctuaries.
Moving to Chicago was a bit of a cultural shock for me. I found the traffic and the constant crush of so many people to be a bit intimidating. I wasn’t a fan of all of the locks that separated our tiny apartment from the street and the apartment itself felt too small and tight for my sensibilities. Our seminary had a small chapel as well as a very large chapel with a pipe organ and soaring gothic ceilings. Both had spectacular stained glass windows with bright colored light streaming into the rooms. Both offered a sense of sanctuary from the activities of the city outside. And there were many other sanctuaries in my seminary years. Just across the street from our seminary was Rockefeller Chapel, a gothic revival chapel with a 200’ bell tower and soaring stone ceilings, a massive pipe organ and a carillon that could be heard from our apartment. I served as janitor at University Christian Church and we frequented the chapel of the University of Chicago Divinity School. I served multiple internships at Union Church of Hinsdale and spent time in both its main sanctuary and the smaller wedding chapel.
The summer we completed our seminary degrees, my parents took us on a trip to Europe that we dubbed the “cathedrals and castles tour” as we stopped to tour cathedrals nearly every day of our travels. I took hundreds of photographs of cathedral exteriors and interiors, as well as photos of details such as baptismal fonts, gargoyles, pulpits and pipe organs. I still have several carousels of 35mm slides from that trip.
As pastor, I have found great solace in the worship spaces of the congregations I have served. One of our first two churches, In Hettinger, North Dakota has been preserved by the community as “Centennial Chapel,” and looks exactly as it did when we were pastors there, right down to the same carpet on the floor. Our church in Boise had a sanctuary that was too small for the congregation in the days we served there and was remodeled and expanded the year we moved away, but it is still recognizable as the room where we shared a decade worth of worship. The sanctuary of our church here in Rapid City is an architectural masterpiece of simplicity and incredible acoustics. In addition to sharing congregational worship in that space, I have been privileged to spend countless hours in private prayer and meditation in that room. It is my custom to arrive early on Sundays and go to the room alone as I visualize the upcoming worship service and think about the lives of the people who will attend.
There have been many wonderful physical sanctuaries in my life, but perhaps the most valuable lesson of the years has been the discovery that sanctuary doesn’t have to be a particular location or a specific architecture. Sanctuary is any place where I open myself to God’s presence. God is indeed everywhere and there is no place that cannot be a sanctuary.
I have experienced the sacred in patient care rooms of the hospital more often than in the formal chapel hidden behind the reception desk off of the hospital lobby. I have recognized and acknowledged God’s presence in the emergency room, the intensive care area, the pediatrics wing and the cancer care center. I’ve even glimpsed God in the board room and administrative offices. Some of the most earnest prayers I’ve experienced have been offered from the room where families wait while their loved ones are in surgery.
I have experienced the sacred in the homes to which we are dispatched by the Sheriff to respond to emergencies, often tragedies. Sudden and traumatic loss is always a life-altering circumstance. If I set aside my fear and enter into the experiences of others, God’s presence is revealed in surprising ways as we wrestle with the tragedies of pain and grief and loss.
Any space is a sanctuary when I open my eyes and my spirit to God’s presence. Remembering that helps me read the Psalms in a whole new way. Praise God in the sanctuary!
As I grew towards adulthood, I realized that other churches had sanctuaries. I visited those of the Lutheran, Episcopal, Brethren and Church of God in our town and one year, when my father was moderator of the conference, we toured the other congregational churches in our state, traveling by car or airplane. I sat in a lot of sanctuaries that year.
Towards the end of my time in high school, I learned to broaden my concept of sanctuary to include the outdoor worship space at our church camp, where I participated in several very meaningful worship experiences. As my appreciation for outdoor spaces continued to grow, I found sanctuary in a number of spectacular vistas of the mountains of Montana. We would strap on our backpacks and hike away from other people and view gorgeous scenery. I could sense that “surely God is in this place” as I looked in awe and wonder.
In college my primary worship space was the church I attended on Sundays, but I also found sanctuary in the basement room where a college fellowship group, “The Rocky Road Scholars” met weekly. That group took occasional tours of congregations near the college, singing songs and offering prayers and liturgies, so I visited other sanctuaries.
Moving to Chicago was a bit of a cultural shock for me. I found the traffic and the constant crush of so many people to be a bit intimidating. I wasn’t a fan of all of the locks that separated our tiny apartment from the street and the apartment itself felt too small and tight for my sensibilities. Our seminary had a small chapel as well as a very large chapel with a pipe organ and soaring gothic ceilings. Both had spectacular stained glass windows with bright colored light streaming into the rooms. Both offered a sense of sanctuary from the activities of the city outside. And there were many other sanctuaries in my seminary years. Just across the street from our seminary was Rockefeller Chapel, a gothic revival chapel with a 200’ bell tower and soaring stone ceilings, a massive pipe organ and a carillon that could be heard from our apartment. I served as janitor at University Christian Church and we frequented the chapel of the University of Chicago Divinity School. I served multiple internships at Union Church of Hinsdale and spent time in both its main sanctuary and the smaller wedding chapel.
The summer we completed our seminary degrees, my parents took us on a trip to Europe that we dubbed the “cathedrals and castles tour” as we stopped to tour cathedrals nearly every day of our travels. I took hundreds of photographs of cathedral exteriors and interiors, as well as photos of details such as baptismal fonts, gargoyles, pulpits and pipe organs. I still have several carousels of 35mm slides from that trip.
As pastor, I have found great solace in the worship spaces of the congregations I have served. One of our first two churches, In Hettinger, North Dakota has been preserved by the community as “Centennial Chapel,” and looks exactly as it did when we were pastors there, right down to the same carpet on the floor. Our church in Boise had a sanctuary that was too small for the congregation in the days we served there and was remodeled and expanded the year we moved away, but it is still recognizable as the room where we shared a decade worth of worship. The sanctuary of our church here in Rapid City is an architectural masterpiece of simplicity and incredible acoustics. In addition to sharing congregational worship in that space, I have been privileged to spend countless hours in private prayer and meditation in that room. It is my custom to arrive early on Sundays and go to the room alone as I visualize the upcoming worship service and think about the lives of the people who will attend.
There have been many wonderful physical sanctuaries in my life, but perhaps the most valuable lesson of the years has been the discovery that sanctuary doesn’t have to be a particular location or a specific architecture. Sanctuary is any place where I open myself to God’s presence. God is indeed everywhere and there is no place that cannot be a sanctuary.
I have experienced the sacred in patient care rooms of the hospital more often than in the formal chapel hidden behind the reception desk off of the hospital lobby. I have recognized and acknowledged God’s presence in the emergency room, the intensive care area, the pediatrics wing and the cancer care center. I’ve even glimpsed God in the board room and administrative offices. Some of the most earnest prayers I’ve experienced have been offered from the room where families wait while their loved ones are in surgery.
I have experienced the sacred in the homes to which we are dispatched by the Sheriff to respond to emergencies, often tragedies. Sudden and traumatic loss is always a life-altering circumstance. If I set aside my fear and enter into the experiences of others, God’s presence is revealed in surprising ways as we wrestle with the tragedies of pain and grief and loss.
Any space is a sanctuary when I open my eyes and my spirit to God’s presence. Remembering that helps me read the Psalms in a whole new way. Praise God in the sanctuary!