Perhaps the first personal sacred space I created and recognized at the time as such, or at least as something along those lines, was in the autumn of 2002. At Graceland University in my senior year I lived in “the units” and in my room I placed together a few empty boxes and draped over them a sea-foam green sheet, place upon that scriptures and perhaps a few other things. I don’t recall if I had something similar when I returned back to Oregon and lived in my parents house as I started Seminary, though when I moved to Seattle in the autumn of 2004 I would create some small sacred space eventually within my living room, now consisting of a few candles, and at times scriptures. Again at my parents house as I recovered from illness I am uncertain if I had that space, but upon moving to Ohio I would find myself creating an entire room of sacred space. That room was a place of prayer, of devotion, of sermon preparation, of reflection. It was perhaps with that room that I started to incorporate the daily prayer for peace into my daily life. This autumn I moved once more and slowly started to form a new sacred space. This week is when I finally was able to work a lot on it and get it to a point where it draws me into peace and focus. Fabric draped, candles, images, the bear my grandma Anderson gave me in 6th grade when I was ill, the ghost tiger I got in 1993 at the San Diego Zoo, the lamp I purchased a year ago for that first room of sacred space, the drill bit used in the construction of the Independence portion of the Temple… arranged all in calming ways. This morning I entered that sacred space, I opened myself in prayer, and found myself in calm and peace, even in the midst of all the stresses that lay before me today.
That is my personal sacred space, but all space is sacred. yet some space draws me more into communion, more into right relationship, with self, other, communities, humanity, creation, and the Eternal Creating One than other spaces do. often those spaces are in nature, such as the volcanoes, waterfalls, forest, and ocean coasts of the Pacific Northwest, or the meditation gardens across the street from where I now reside. The meditation chapel, worshiper’s path, and sanctuary of the Independence Temple, the lower court of the Kirtland Temple and rest of those two structures built as sacred space by those searching and seeking to respond to the Eternal One’s call to be a people of reconciliation and healing in this broken and strife torn world. While these are perhaps the spaces I come to often, I must remember all space is sacred, I must be open to encounter and open myself in all sacred space, both when alone and when in the wonderful joys and struggles of community. I need to grow and find new and old ways to help others encounter sacred space in ways appropriate to them that leads them to encounter the Eternal, to grow, be healed, and formed by the comforting presence of the Holy Spirit, the Peace of the Living Christ, and Love and Grace of the Amazing Creating One. Their encounters with sacred space will be different than mine, the personal sacred space the need will be different than what I need. Yet we can work together in growing and becoming more whole, more healed, and less broken than we are at present. Together growing to form and understand that “sacred space” that is not physical, but rather is “community,” perhaps in my context specifically “community created in the name of the One who suffered on behalf of all” (Doctrine and Covenants 161:3a) along with all sacred community that transcends beyond the borders of particular understandings and relationships with the Eternal.
Peace be with you,
— Lyle II