We are here to renew the sacred
I’ve said this phrase again and again. It’s a mantra, a talisman, a compass to me.
It's a simple thing, renewing the sacred; it doesn't mean we have to craft something new, build new religions, tear down the old, none of that.
Listen: there's a sacred stream that runs through the valley of human existence — that has always run through the valley of human existence.
Like any stream, this one shapes the world around it. It imprints its current into earth and stone, creates a dynamic world of flora and fauna inside itself, on its surface, along its borders. It feeds fish and seaweed and bears and oaken groves. It smooths stones, it supports villages that grow up along its banks, then cities that grow up from the villages.
Like any stream, it moves. The landscape shifts, and the riverbed goes dry — the water shifts elsewhere, taking another path to on its way to the sea. The smooth stones and shaped banks are all that’s left.
In the new riverbed, the plants recover, the fish recover; the bears and deer find their way to the new banks. The forest adjusts. But the people — those cities that sprung forth from the villages that sprung forth from the stream — they stay. They’ve invested so much where they are, they’ve learned so much about this riverbed. Why should shifting waters move them?
So they pave the dry riverbed with silver and glass, let sun and shadow roil over the shining surface to mimic of flowing water. They set up street-lamps on its banks, hold processions along its path at the end of each week. They etch the glass with scenes of the river’s past, they tell the children this is what a stream is, this silvered glass streaked with tire tracks — it is the flow of divine Will, this path through the city is the Way.
We are here to renew the sacred.
We don’t have to build a new city or pave a new silver street. We don’t have to etch the glass with more relatable motifs or update the street-lamps to a more contemporary style.
All we have to do is stay close to the stream, wherever it shifts. We have to press our hands into its current, feel its flow, watch the boars and the wolves drink from the same stream. We don’t even need to leave the city, necessarily; we don’t have to abjure it’s silvered streets or smash its etchings into glassy dust.
We just have to remember where the water is, and stay with it as often as we can. We are here to stay with the water.