"Our destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things," Henry Miller once stated (p. 12), and how right he was in regards to intangible places, ones where we cannot physically go. When someone is in a place of depression or sadness, for example, it doesn't mean they've literally gone somewhere else; it means that their outlook on life is simply from a different viewpoint, and they might be looking at things in a negative way. This destination, however, deserves a more positive connotation, and I believe that Miller meant for one to take events in life as they are, then take a second look, and arrive at a place completely different.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Emily Cole: Landscapes of the Sacred Introduction
In Belden C. Lane's Landscapes of the Sacred, the reader is urged to participate as a means of 'human understanding' (p. 4) of the wilderness, whether it be culturally, religiously, or ecologically. Lane cites cultural geographer Yi-Fu Tuan's theory of topophilia ('the attachment we often feel for particular places' (p. 6)), which I believe everyone has experienced at one point in their lives. For example, I consider only one place to be my true home, and one for which I feel this attachment Tuan wrote about in his 1974 work, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values. This place is a bungalow in a small beach community, set right on the bay front of Jamaica Bay in Queens, New York. From my porch one can see the New York City skyline, Empire State Building and all, and even the historic Coney Island to the left horizon. But what makes this house so special is its history- over 80 years of family memories have been made, and three generations have grown up there. Gabriel Marcel states that "an individual is not distinct from his place; he is that place," (p. 6) and nothing applies more perfectly to this house. I've moved around eight times, and I've never lived in the same place twice; this is why my beach house means so much to me, its the once place to which I have returned summer after summer, and until finally settling down in my home in Northern Virginia, it was the only place I knew for sure I would return to, and that is a comforting thought growing up. Returning to a certain place is about comfort, after all. Lane explains how its a very common recurring theme in dreams, "the seat that cannot be found- the anxiety that one feels in seeking his or her appropriate place at a meeting, on a plane, at a formal banquet," (p. 7). How true, that we all worry about where to sit in everyday aspects of our lives; in addition to Lane's examples, I think of finding a seat in class, and then worrying still in every subsequent class unless there is an assignment for where to sit. Also, as a little girl I remember arguing with my sisters about getting the same seats in our mom's van, as if this would determine so much in regards to an upcoming errand or car trip. Now, being almost 20 years old, I translate that into calling "shotgun!" every time I'm a passenger in someone else's car- its all about knowing where you will be and being comfortable about that knowledge.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Destruction of Sacred Place
Matthew Latham, On sacred space.
In Landscapes of the Sacred, Belden Lane starts out his journey of the sacred with an explanation of exactly what sacred place is. To Lane, it is not a building or obvious structure, but simply a place. I prefer to refer to the area that is sacred as space rather than place. Place refers to much to the features of an area. Space, on the other hand, is simply an area it cannot be bounded. Space is created, place is given. Lane makes many references to the works of Mircea Eliade while describing what sacred space is. To Eliade, "sacred place constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space; This break is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic region to another is made possible." Lane goes on to say, "sacred place becomes the point at which the wondrous power of the divine could be seen breaking into the world's alleged ordinariness." In short -The sacred is simple place, but in that simple place, a connection can be made to something greater.Sacred place cannot be destroyed, but it can be moved, moved to wherever it pleases. Take for example the curious case of the Warwick Baptist Church.
Thursday morning September 10, 2009 the Warwick Baptist Church burnt to the ground. As the fire raged members stood around watching firefighters risk their lives trying to save the building they loved so much. "At first it was a struggle to try and pray and seek God and what God is doing in this," sad the pastor of the church Robert Wilson." But as flames reduced their beloved place of worship to the ground Wilson began to realize that a building is exactly that, a building. "This is a church. It's a building. The true crux of it all is the membership." Wilson realized that what made the building special to him and his congregation was not the ascetics of the place, but the sanctity of the space, and that can never be destroyed. Chris Gill, an associate pastor for another congregation that also used the facility added, "God can do wonderful things out of it, so I'm at peace with it." The congregation will rebuild the church and create another sacred space, by practicing their faith, customs, rituals, and love.
Sacred space cannot be destroyed, it can only be reborn into something even more beautiful.
September 15, 2009
by, Matthew Latham
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/local_wavy_newportnews_church_fire_20090910
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Axioms of scared places according to Landsscapes of the Scared posted by Diana Cox
The author in chapter one points out many different axioms or rules which are able to guide the student of American spirituality to understand the character of a scared place.
I thought these rules would be informative for anyone writing a paper about a sacred place. The first rule or axiom is that a scared place is not chosen, it chooses. For an example a place can “create” people. People can find religion, peace, hope, or be forever changed in a scared place. On the other hand people can create the place. People build places for the purpose of something spiritual; whether it is a place of worship or a place of ritual. The second axiom is that a scared place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary. Religion and ritual acts bring the place to life, for example the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Three different religions have worshipped there and hold that place to be a scared place in their religion. Islam believe it is the Dome of the Rock is a place where the prophet Muhammad descended into the seventh heaven, Judaism and Christianity believe it is the place where Abraham tried to sacrifice his son Isaac. These rituals bring the Dome of the Rock to life. The third axiom is that a scared place can be tried upon without being entered. A person can occupy a space without dwelling in the space. Ones symbolic participation in a place of significance is never totally available to scrutiny. How can one measure another’s participation in a scared place? The answer is you can not, how someone participates is not the important part of a scared place it is the participation in the place that is more important. The last axiom the author mentions is that a scared place is both centripetal and centrifugal. The religious impulse periodically moves both toward and away from the center point where contact with the holy is made. The place focuses on a particular divine encounter. For example, Muhammad descending into heaven would be a sort of divine encounter. These examples of the Dome of the Rock and rules are for learning and understanding the character of a scared place. I hope that these rules help others as much as they have helped me in understanding scared places.
I thought these rules would be informative for anyone writing a paper about a sacred place. The first rule or axiom is that a scared place is not chosen, it chooses. For an example a place can “create” people. People can find religion, peace, hope, or be forever changed in a scared place. On the other hand people can create the place. People build places for the purpose of something spiritual; whether it is a place of worship or a place of ritual. The second axiom is that a scared place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary. Religion and ritual acts bring the place to life, for example the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Three different religions have worshipped there and hold that place to be a scared place in their religion. Islam believe it is the Dome of the Rock is a place where the prophet Muhammad descended into the seventh heaven, Judaism and Christianity believe it is the place where Abraham tried to sacrifice his son Isaac. These rituals bring the Dome of the Rock to life. The third axiom is that a scared place can be tried upon without being entered. A person can occupy a space without dwelling in the space. Ones symbolic participation in a place of significance is never totally available to scrutiny. How can one measure another’s participation in a scared place? The answer is you can not, how someone participates is not the important part of a scared place it is the participation in the place that is more important. The last axiom the author mentions is that a scared place is both centripetal and centrifugal. The religious impulse periodically moves both toward and away from the center point where contact with the holy is made. The place focuses on a particular divine encounter. For example, Muhammad descending into heaven would be a sort of divine encounter. These examples of the Dome of the Rock and rules are for learning and understanding the character of a scared place. I hope that these rules help others as much as they have helped me in understanding scared places.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Defining Religion Notes
Religion Defined
Part one - Religion is the relationship humans have with a transcendent and ultimate authority/power.
Part two - A system of values, ideas, and practices that provide a culture with a cosmos—an ordered reality.
Peter Berger writes in the Sacred Canopy that religion is “the establishment, through human activity, of an all-embracing sacred order, that is, of a sacred cosmos that will be capable of maintaining itself in the ever-present face of chaos” (51).
Part three - In conjunction with parts one and two, it is the practice of maintaining cosmos.
When our experience of the chaos overwhelms cosmos, religion offers a way to maintain cosmos, usually through ritual.
From Ernesto Grassi's Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition, University Park: The Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1980.
Grassi defines religion "as man's endeavor to construct a 'holy and intact' cosmos which he conceives to be an overpowering reality other than himself. This reality is that to which man turns in order to give himself a place in an absolutely meaningful order" (102).
Grassi continues: "Religiousness, defined this way, springs from the experience of the threat to man's being consumed by chaos and thus from the necessity of holding the terrible in check by giving reality a fixed meaning" (102).
Grassi contrast sacred speech with rational speech and defines rational speech in three parts: first, rational speech claims to be "demonstrative and to offer proof because it gives the reasons for its assertions." Second, "rational speech arises from a process of inference through which every form of immediateness and every metaphoric element is excluded." Third, "its statements have a purely formal character, and their validity depends exclusively on the premises to which they refer. (103-104).
In the relationship between religion and language Grassi defines sacred language in five parts:
first " a purely directive, revealing, or evangelical character (never a demonstrative or proving function), and it never arises out of a process of inference in order not to give up its original character or absolute undetermined character." Second, "the statements of sacred language are formulated without any mediation, that is, 'in the twinkling of an eye' and in an imagistic way." Third, "they are 'metaphorical' statements insofar as sacred language lends the reality of sensory appearances a new meaning." Fourth, "the assertions of sacred language have a claim to urgency; the theoretical or practical view that does not fit with them is 'outrageous.'" Fifth, "its announcements claim to stand outside of time."
Myth
Narratives are the means by which we construct a world, using language, that has a beginning and an end. In religious studies we call these narratives myths. Myths are narratives that give us an ultimate perspective, a picture of the cosmos. Myths outline the beginning and in so doing imply an end, sometimes describing the end. Scientific accounts can never give an ultimate picture; they communicate specific instances. One difference between myth and theory (scientific accounts) is that theory is to be tested while myth is a foundation for what is real.
•C.S. Lewis wrote, “What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level. Myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley. . . Myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. It is not, like truth, abstract; nor is it, like direct experience, bound to the particular.
Part one - Religion is the relationship humans have with a transcendent and ultimate authority/power.
Part two - A system of values, ideas, and practices that provide a culture with a cosmos—an ordered reality.
Peter Berger writes in the Sacred Canopy that religion is “the establishment, through human activity, of an all-embracing sacred order, that is, of a sacred cosmos that will be capable of maintaining itself in the ever-present face of chaos” (51).
Part three - In conjunction with parts one and two, it is the practice of maintaining cosmos.
When our experience of the chaos overwhelms cosmos, religion offers a way to maintain cosmos, usually through ritual.
From Ernesto Grassi's Rhetoric as Philosophy: The Humanist Tradition, University Park: The Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1980.
Grassi defines religion "as man's endeavor to construct a 'holy and intact' cosmos which he conceives to be an overpowering reality other than himself. This reality is that to which man turns in order to give himself a place in an absolutely meaningful order" (102).
Grassi continues: "Religiousness, defined this way, springs from the experience of the threat to man's being consumed by chaos and thus from the necessity of holding the terrible in check by giving reality a fixed meaning" (102).
Grassi contrast sacred speech with rational speech and defines rational speech in three parts: first, rational speech claims to be "demonstrative and to offer proof because it gives the reasons for its assertions." Second, "rational speech arises from a process of inference through which every form of immediateness and every metaphoric element is excluded." Third, "its statements have a purely formal character, and their validity depends exclusively on the premises to which they refer. (103-104).
In the relationship between religion and language Grassi defines sacred language in five parts:
first " a purely directive, revealing, or evangelical character (never a demonstrative or proving function), and it never arises out of a process of inference in order not to give up its original character or absolute undetermined character." Second, "the statements of sacred language are formulated without any mediation, that is, 'in the twinkling of an eye' and in an imagistic way." Third, "they are 'metaphorical' statements insofar as sacred language lends the reality of sensory appearances a new meaning." Fourth, "the assertions of sacred language have a claim to urgency; the theoretical or practical view that does not fit with them is 'outrageous.'" Fifth, "its announcements claim to stand outside of time."
Myth
Narratives are the means by which we construct a world, using language, that has a beginning and an end. In religious studies we call these narratives myths. Myths are narratives that give us an ultimate perspective, a picture of the cosmos. Myths outline the beginning and in so doing imply an end, sometimes describing the end. Scientific accounts can never give an ultimate picture; they communicate specific instances. One difference between myth and theory (scientific accounts) is that theory is to be tested while myth is a foundation for what is real.
•C.S. Lewis wrote, “What flows into you from the myth is not truth but reality (truth is always about something, but reality is that about which truth is), and, therefore, every myth becomes the father of innumerable truths on the abstract level. Myth is the mountain whence all the different streams arise which become truths down here in the valley. . . Myth is the isthmus which connects the peninsular world of thought with that vast continent we really belong to. It is not, like truth, abstract; nor is it, like direct experience, bound to the particular.
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