I Need the Sacred in Life

I have a great need to experience the sacred. I think we all do.

We live in times that so often desecrate the human spirit. War, drones, gun violence, road rage, political wrangling, insatiable greed, sexual abuse, child abandonment, and all sorts of inhuman acts against one another too often occur which all serve to deaden our souls.

The recent news of the man who systematically kidnapped three young girls in his neighborhood, who just decided to own them as his property, held them captive for years, sexually used them for his own entertainment, was unimaginable in its heartlessness. How do those women, whose youth and teenage years and sense of self were taken from them, how do they recover from that kind of fiendish, barbaric treatment?

We see this on the news and something dies inside us. It is so easy then to want to harden ourselves against the cruelty of others. But in the process we lose our connection with the sacred.

Each morning when I get to my desk I turn on my computer and listen to Schubert’s “Ava Maria.” It is such a beautiful piece. Soothing. Calming. Enchanting. It quiets my spirit before the day’s busyness sets in; before the harsh realities of life seep into the quiet of the morning. More and more I feel the need for a disarming of the spirit before it shields itself in guarded defensiveness.

I want to see the symmetry and feel the rhythm in life. I want to believe in people; trust their innate goodness; be warmed by their benevolence. I want to be romanced by wonder and experience feelings of the transcendent. I need a night to trace the lines of the Big Dipper, to be stunned by the expanse of space. I need a week on an ample and unpopulated beach and across white sand watch the horizon dance on sky blue water. I need the warm glow of some otherworldly moment. I want to be touched by the sacred.

Not long ago Ingrid and I were at the Farmer’s Market trying to decide on a nice pot of flowers to put on her front porch. What is it about flowers that take us so quickly into their courteous world of color? It is their delicacy. It is their clear sign of a growing life. It is their variety, their changing textures, their multiple sizes and shapes and designs. There is so much in them to be drawn into, to be dazzled by. They are fragile, but if well cared for, they can be so hardy, so resilient, so enduring. And yet it is their transience, their fleeting beauty that perhaps most expresses a sacredness contained within them.

Can humans achieve such an existence? In our brief time here can we with strength guard our fragility while also showing our capacity to blossom, to nourish, to be a beautiful presence?

I want a life like that. A life touched by the sacred.

If I had five minutes to evacuate--what would I take with me?

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

I Saw the Delicacy of Life

I was flying Across the deep And I saw the delicacy Of life Wrinkles on the faces Of the old So pure they glistened Like awards The joy of children Running with abandon Their laughter ringing Like chimes in the wind I saw the soft moving waves Across the sea And the trees releasing Their rainbow leaves Birds joined me on my flight And I saw the surface of their wings Adorned with patterns Glorious and unfurled I saw the tears of the sad And the smiles of the glad The suffering in mourning And the celebration of birth As I descended toward the ground Slowly, slowly, softly I saw the gentle grass of the field And smelled the fresh earth It was a perfect landing © 2018 Timothy Moody

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

The Unclad Soul

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