Aaron Hackett Required Text 2 Lane approaches

Lane’s three approaches to sacred space remind me of balance. They basically say that you can interpret sacred space as completely magical and beyond you, completely definable through cultural explanations, or by allowing place to take part in its perception. There are aspects of all three that are important. This reminds me of apophatic and kataphatic ways of dealing with religious imagination. Just like the cultural approach, the kataphatic approach leaves the individual with only what they know and see and nothing else. The apophatic approach and the ontological approach leave the individual with nothing but mystery. The phenomenological presents a transcendence of both of these. Instead of giving the place qualities of culture or sacredness, this approach engages all aspects of the land itself in conversation to allow it to perceive itself through us. This is hard to swallow, as thinking of a plant touching us back is not something we can quite handle. However, that reciprocity is key to being present in the place. I believe it would be an extreme challenge to incorporate all of these while going through a place, but it seems entirely important to encountering it rather than experiencing it.