Holy Ground
Standing on the Sacred
When does ordinary dirt become holy ground? How do our steps sometimes take us to places where we are standing on the sacred? This mystery can happen in the most ordinary moments.
My Mysterious Mind
In recent weeks, I have had several unusual, “spiritual,” experiences. My day will be ordinary, when, unexpectedly, a profound conversation emerges with another person. We’ll be just chit-chatting about nothing important one moment; the next moment we’re contemplating a profound question or a deeply buried injury. Some of these plunges into the deep have been happening with strangers, others in previously shallow friendships. I don’t mean anything derogatory about labeling these relationships as “shallow,” just indicating the ordinary, day-to-day type of topics we usually share.
I’ve recently had peculiar encounters with strangers, also oddly intense. In one, I was walking alone on an empty sidewalk and met someone whose presentation I had recently heard. I had just been thinking about him and how I wanted to ask him if he was writing a book on his subject. I said, “I enjoyed your presentation.” We both kept walking while he said, “thanks.” Then he turned around abruptly and said, “Who are you?” After introducing myself we dove into a dialogue that included my asking him about his plans to write a book. But our conversation went far beyond the casual.
When getting my teeth cleaned one morning this week, the hygienist leaned toward my ear to share something personal. In a whisper, she shared the pain of something happening to one of her children. I whispered a comforting reply, to which she replied, “no one knows this here.” After a private exchange about her child’s condition, we returned to normal chit-chat at an audible volume. Well, as normal as chit-chat can be when one of the people involved has the other’s fingers in her mouth. At the end of my appointment, I quietly assured her of my prayers for her situation.
All of this has gotten me thinking about holy ground. These encounters have seemed like “divine appointments” though perhaps not as dramatic as a bush burning though not being consumed by the fire. That’s how Moses had his divine appointment with God, during which Moses was told to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. Moses was just walking along, having an ordinary day, when his steps mysteriously led him to where he was standing on the sacred. This is what my walk has seemed to be lately, without the burning bush, of course.
The mystery of holy ground happens when our ordinary steps lead us to sacred places. I’ve been wondering why this has happened so frequently during the past few weeks. Has something in my journey shifted? Have I been walking somewhere different? Or have these sacred moments been available, and I just missed them before?
Message of Mystery Acres
We have very few neighbors in the forest, at least not human ones. Most of the properties are owned by people, like us, who visit for recreational purposes. Our encounters with any of them are few and far between. One exception is a neighbor who has a year-round residence just around the bend of the road from us. His work takes him away for several days at a time, and he’s usually gone when we are around. Our most recent visit was a beautiful alignment, more than just being in the neighbor-woods at the same time.
I did what I usually do, sending him a text message to let him know we were around. I invited him to join us for an evening around the fire pit. I didn’t hear back from him, which is typical if he’s away with work. After the fire died down to a pile of glowing embers, with a moonless darkness concealing us, we heard a familiar sound of a four-wheeler heading our way on the gravel road. I told my husband to turn on his headlamp so we could be seen. Thus began our late-night musings in the woods.
At first, I added some wood to the fire so we could see each other on this rare, black night. I even threw a packet of “magic” chemicals to make the flames flicker in hues of blue and purple. As the hours passed and the fire returned to a mass of glowing embers, our dialogue grew deeply personal. Our neighbor shared his childhood experiences with organized religion, where he was told he couldn’t question the faith he was taught. His story was a weave of profanity and Bible verses; he was fluent in both. He asserted that organized religion was not what Christ intended. Christians were meant to be called forth from the world when they gathered, not bring the messy world with them.
Once, in Tel Aviv, he said, he had been invited by a shopkeeper into an upper room for Shabbat. For the next hour he experienced a congregation of believers who were authentic and undeniably solid in their faith. The encounter had stayed with him, never having known such fellowship before, or since. For him, church was never like that.
He continued to rant about the problems with the modern church. During a pause in his tirade, I calmly said, “you should know something; I am congregational president at my church back in Springfield.”
Suddenly concerned he had offended me, he began to backtrack and apologize. I kindly told him to stop. I was not at all offended. I understood what he was telling me about his experiences and why he felt as he did. As we talked about the Creator of the Universe and childhood schisms with organized religion, his faith in an Almighty Being became obvious.
Well after midnight, we marveled together at the heavens and their incomprehensible Creator. As we stared upward at a sky filled with more stars than we could comprehend, we stood on holy ground. He remarked that this is what church should be like. I said, “where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” He agreed. I added something about how profound it was to realize that Jesus, who co-created the universe, had walked among mere humans.
We were standing by the fading glow of a campfire in the strong and undeniable reality of Holy Ground, the presence of the Creator infusing us, enveloping us, and connecting us. The message of Mystery Acres was a time when the earth beneath us became sacred, as did the forest surrounding us. We were standing on, and in, the sacred, with the expanse of the heavens declaring the glory of God.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice
“God said, ‘You are standing on holy ground.’” (see Exodus 3: 5)
Moses was working as a shepherd, taking care of his father-in-law’s flock, on the far side of the wilderness, near Horeb, known as the mountain of God. On this ordinary day, God got the attention of Moses through flames within a bush. Moses noticed something weird going on; the bush was burning but was not being burned. Moses walked closer to get a better look at this strange phenomenon.
When the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to look at the bush, He called to him from the bush, “Moses! Moses!” To which Moses replied, “Here I am.”
Then God told Moses to stop and remove his sandals because the place he was standing was holy ground. Then they had a serious conversation, a deep dive, into the assignment God had planned for Moses. Basically, God was sending Moses to Egypt to tell the Pharoah to free the people of Israel from slavery there.
To summarize the encounter Moses had with holy ground, first he noticed something weird going on. Second, he moved closer to see what was happening. Third, he realized he was standing on holy ground. Finally, Moses had a serious conversation with the Divine.
Ancient Mystery’s Voice invites us to look for unusual signs of God at work and to focus our attention more closely on them. When our steps take us to where we are standing on the sacred, we are to listen closely for the message there. We can probably leave our shoes on, but we need to be paying attention, watching for divine appointments, so we can arrive on Holy Ground.
Living in Mystery
What does it mean to live in the mystery of holy ground, when we find ourselves standing on the sacred? First, this mystery invites us to be alert to its presence along the path of an ordinary day. An appointment with a divine encounter can happen anytime, anywhere. My recent experiences have happened in the forest, while sitting in a dentist’s chair, and walking alone on a sidewalk. An average conversation or normal routine can cross near or through a sacred space. Living in awareness of the possibility of encountering something extraordinary improves the likelihood of noticing it when it does.
Living in the mystery of holy ground is more than just being on the lookout for it; we can expect the sacred to show up at any moment. I started writing these weekly messages without knowing what the content would be. Every week, as the time for writing draws near, I expect inspiration to arrive. And it does. And, more than just having “something” to write, I expect the content to mean something important to someone, somewhere. My last message was about life’s abrupt shifts, what I called “whiplash.” I wrote about how these sudden and unexpected changes will come to all of us. During the past few days, one of my listeners unexpectedly lost her father-in-law, another nearly lost his wife to cardiac arrest. In the latter, she was being prepped for surgery, a procedure she didn’t have, because whiplash took her and her family into a very different place. I didn’t know such experiences were on the horizon for two of my devoted subscribers, but the divine showed up through giving me a message only a few days earlier. I’ve learned to write in expectation of the divine working through my words. They aren’t my words, after all, just what I receive when I am standing on the sacred space planned for me.
You see, the mystery of holy ground is about being where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. Like an appointment where you are scheduled to be a certain place at a certain time, the sacred works in a similar way. Unlike our printed calendars, however, we can only travel to our divine appointments by quiet discernment and obedient steps. If Moses had been distracted or in a hurry, he might have missed the burning bush and his encounter with the sacred.
As an old mom to young parents, I encourage you to slow down during your parenting moments. Train your mind to focus on what is happening right now with your child. Parenting is a series of divine appointments, most camouflaged as ordinary, daily responsibilities. The sacred calls to you in each of those tasks as you sacrifice your life bit by bit for the well-being of another. A loving home, or a car transporting a child to school or practice, is holy ground. Live in the awareness of that reality and expect the divine even during the monotonous work of raising a child.
The mystery of holy ground, when our ordinary steps take us to sacred places, is a profound reality. The concrete and comprehensible becomes the spiritual and inexplicable. Oh, what a wonder it is to live normal lives in such extraordinary moments!
Connecting with Mystery
Dear Lord of All Mystery, thank You for the path you make for me each day and the divine appointments You have planned for me. Help me to walk slowly and in more complete awareness of the sacred. Prompt me to stop and focus when I find myself standing on holy ground. Tune my attention to hearing You and my heart to hearing those in need. Thank You for bringing the sacred under my simple feet and inviting me to stand on holy ground. Amen.
Notes from Dr. Mac
If you want to do your own investigation of any of the scriptures I use, I suggest you go to Bible Gateway. This free online version of the Bible allows a search of words or phrases. Various translations can be selected from the old-time language of the King James version to the more modernized language of The Message. The full story of Moses and the burning bush can be found in Exodus, chapters three and four.
You can find previous posts of my work at my ARCHIVE and organized compilations in the My Books section. You can also find Mystery’s Voice on Spotify.
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