Sacred Communication/Journey 2018

Praying with a Decentered Self “The proper posture of prayer must be a kenotic one…”. Pg. 4 In The Phenomenology of Prayer, an overall theme is that we do not really know how to pray and so we are always in a constant state of learning. How should we practice prayer? It is often misconceived that prayer is about yourself, but it is a response to God. Therefore, kenosis is the way that prayer should be practiced. Kenosis means emptying ourselves before God. When praying you decenter yourself and the self loses its preoccupation with itself and focuses on God. Humans are known to be selfish and that is not the way anyone should be when talking to God. Those who pray, should practice self-emptying, so the sacred can instill itself in our bodily being and behavior. Through this book, I’ve learned that prayer is a phenomenology and it’s something that may never be completely understood, but the practice of prayer through kenosis moves us toward a compassionate, merciful, responsib...

Topic of Choosing- Blue Grass Song: “Who Will Watch My Home Place” In class, we listened to this song and I truly enjoyed it. The song had a pleasant tune and was sung with such passion and emotion. There are few songs out there that seem to evoke some sort of feelings out of me, but this one did; that’s why I’m fascinated by this rare piece of music. The lyrics “who will tend my hearts dear space… when I am gone from here” caught my attention. My interpretation of this line and this song is that the singer worries/wonders about what will come of the things she is so close to when she is gone and who will she be without them. “Gone” is ambiguous. The listener doesn’t really know if she means gone from the world or just leaving the place that her heart belongs to. However, the ambiguity doesn’t change the message of what becomes of us and what happens to the things that we had grown close to when we leave. Who is going to protect everything that you owned and built? Who will you ...

November 11, 2018 [Petitionary Prayer][The Phenomenology of Prayer] Prayer is supposed to be a sacred communication between a person and a higher being that elevates the spirit and brings you closer to God. Prayer is then, not supposed to be made up of requests for personal gifts, changing things of the past or manipulating the future, or requesting harm onto another. Prayer should rather be focused on forming a closer relationship with God. It is more beneficial to express your personal concerns as an outlet of trust and can praise him for life. Prayer, then, serves as an outlet for life on Earth, but should not be focused on selfish concerns, but concerns aimed at grace. How do we know that a higher being is at the receiving end of these prayers and we aren't just praying to our consciousness?

Topic of Choosing- The Sacred Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal was built by a Muslim emperor named Shah Jahan. The extraordinary structure is a mausoleum meaning that it is a large building housing a tomb or tombs. Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of his beloved wife to house her tomb. The mausoleum took a long 23 years to build starting in 1632 and finishing in 1655. The project took a whopping 20,000 laborers to bring Shah Jahan’s masterpiece to life. The Taj Mahal is in India and it covers about 24 acres with its beautiful paths, gardens, fountains, and giant reflecting pool. What makes the Taj Mahal sacred? It was an ordinary piece of land turned into an extraordinary place. It’s a jewel of Muslim art, it has a working mosque, it’s a testament of love, and it’s a place of prayer.   The Taj Mahal is a place of sacred pilgrimage open to all faiths such as Muslims, Hindus, Christians, etc. People from all over come to see the beauty of Shah Jahan’s creation.

    Lane describes Mount Rainier as a Mask of God in Landscapes of the Sacred . Mount Rainier has long been a subject of folklore as viewers of the mountain looked in awe. Tahoma, as it was called by the Native Americans, was believed to be an incarnation of God. The mountain become the location of many spiritual encounters and thus became a sacred place of itself. Lane describes a visit during which the land compelled him as much to give it his blessing as a sort of offering to the land. It is fascinating that mere landscapes are able to have such an impact on the human mind and soul as to leave them feeling changed and having undergone a spiritual journey, but such is the case with thousands of landscapes across the globe. Mount Rainier is a unique place that affords its many visitors to experience nature and to have the opportunity to connect with God.

   The emphasis of chapter 1 is that humans inevitably connect places with spiritual experiences.  Beldon Lane does an excellent job at analyzing how places and lands become sacred in Landscapes of the Sacred . Lane introduces his four axioms for sacred place, with each one brining new light to the narrative on spirituality. Lane also mentions Jacob attributing the land on which he slept for the dream about the ladder descending from Heaven. It is incredible the ways that people tie experiences to places, or even to expect certain experiences out of certain places. Devout Catholics will visit the Vatican expecting a religious revelation and devout Muslims make a pilgrimage to the Kaaba to fulfill their faith. Lane's exploration of this topic cites excellent evidence and makes the readers think about how the title of "sacred" is attributed to different locations.

Student choice. Yesterday in class, Dr Redick discussed his trip to Disney Land. He explained how everyone in the park is always happy because of the effect the atmosphere has on people. This always happy atmosphere, headed by the staff members, who are put through special training, are always. This has an effect on people to smile and continue the happy experience. Lane describes the axioms of a sacred place and the second axiom is that a sacred place is an ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary. So what makes Disney Land extraordinary? Disney Land is an ordinary place that is made extraordinary by the gleaming staff members that influence the park-goers to remain happy and make their trip extraordinary.

In chapter 8, Lane describes the story Jack Turner recently told him about the time he crashed his plane in the Canyonland National Park. Jack furthermore tells Lane that he experienced an eerie feeling as he was walking and looking at ancient pictures that had been left behind. Two months later, Jack returned to the site but the feelings he once had on the day of the crash weren't felt again. Lane states that those feelings weren't felt because it was only a sacred encounter the first time he was there. Do the events of the day that Jack was apart of have something to do with the sacred encounter? Yes, a sacred encounter is brought on by the mere events that happen and sometimes one does not feel the sacred connection again because the events only happened once. Jack continued to explain that he tried to rethink the thoughts he had that day but there was still no connection. This is really interesting to me because there have been times where I return to a place and it just fe...

Today in class, Dr. Redick compared Disney to sacred place. He discussed how people who work in Disney are forced to go into special training in order to work there. They are forced to smile all day long as a way to engineer Disney to be happy. Lanes second axiom states that sacred place is ordinary place, ritually made extraordinary. This can be compared to Disney because Disney serves as an ordinary place that it made extraordinary by the people who go to visit it and feed into the capitalism. Lanes third axiom states that sacred place can be tread upon without being entered. This related to Disney, because not everyone who goes to Disney plans on participating in the engineered happiness and capitalism, such as when Dr. Redick told his story of him going to visit Disneyland at 18.

Iconography represents an important aspect to Christian culture and rituals. Emphasis on Mary shifted from the middle ages to the nineteenth century from being Mary as Theotokos nursing or holding her divine son to be Mary by herself taking initiatives on behalf of mankind. Mexico also serves as a place that millions of people can go to each year to take a pilgrimage to a shrine that could be the site of reported apparitions, have martyrs’ or saint’s relics that have the power to cure.   Other shrines become important due to their historical associations and antiquity. I think that it is important for people to make a connection with iconography and shrines as a way to have more open sacred communication and be more engaged while praying. 

This book describes how if a pilgrim is half a tourist, then a tourist is half a pilgrim. The author says, “even when people bury themselves in anonymous crowds on beaches, they are seeking an almost sacred, often symbolic, mode of communitas, generally unavailable to them in the structured life of the office, the shop floor or the mine” (pg. 20). I agree with this statement because I think that even tourists are looking for the same things that pilgrims look for. Tourists go on vacation as a way to find something different than the structured life at the office and to even relax a little. Pilgrims do the same thing. They leave on a pilgrimage in order to find something different in their ordinary lives or to relax by coming to peace with something in their lives.