In our series on earthly
lessons for a heavenly life on earth, we have reached lesson number
10 today.
Experience Holy
Ground.
But before I get into the
lesson, let me clarify something. Some people have asked me why are
you focusing so much on the earth, and not enough on the bible? And I
ask: “Which came first, the earth or the bible?” The bible is
only 3000 years old. The earth is 3.5 billion years old. The bible
was written by man. The earth was created by God. But I do it for few
other reasons too. It is smart, spiritual and simple.
It is the smart thing to do.
I came to the USA 30 years ago. Had I not learned English, my life
would have been extremely difficult here. I love Indian food. But I
cannot go into Olive Garden and demand chicken curry and rice.
I cannot get into my car and decide to drive on the left side of the
road, because that is what we do in India. If I do that here, you
know how that will end. America is my home now. Following its house
rules would be the smart thing to do for a harmonious life here. It
is the same with the earth. Earth is our home. You will be happy
earthlings, if you follow her rhythms and rules.
Secondly an earth based
spirituality is simple and sustainable. You don't have to learn any
foreign language or spend hours studying obscure scripture passages
and scrutinize the nuances of Hebrew and Greek. You could be
illiterate and still follow an earth based spirituality. Because,
Divine
revelation comes in two volumes: Nature and Scripture.
God
is revealed first through the universe around us and secondly through
the scriptures. In the bible you are reading about God through the
experiences and language of other people. But you can look at nature
around you and experience God directly.
That
is why book of Job says:
But
ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air and
they will tell you; speak to the earth and it will teach you or let
the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the
hand of the Lord has done this? (12: 7-9)
For
starters, every day, sit still, close your eyes for five minutes and
think about the fact, that you are traveling in space around the sun
at 66k miles an hours. That feeling will give you a sense of freedom,
fearlessness and trust. Because you are not attached to anything, God
is holding you in the palm of His hands. When you breathe you are in
communion with the plants around you and also in communion with all
the people around the globe, all of 7 billions of them which should
fill you with unity consciousness. It will make you feel connected
and related and not alone and isolated in this vast universe. It
will prompt you to love everybody, without needing a commandment from
the bible to love your neighbor.
Look
intensely at a plant and feel the emotions that evoke in you. I told
you I have 18 varieties of plants in my front yard and sometimes, I
just pick one and study its color, texture and beauty. How did the
mud beneath the plant transform into a beautiful flower on top?
Which
brings me to today's lesson, experiencing holy ground.
When you hear the word “holy ground,”
you are most likely to think of a church or a holy place such as
Jerusalem, the birth place of Jesus, which by the way is called the
holy land. A Catholic might think of Lourdes in France and Fatima in
Spain as holy places because Mary, mother of Jesus, is believed to
have appeared there. Mejagore in Yugoslavia and Guadalupe in Mexico
are considered to be holy places for the same reason. Thousands of
people go on pilgrimage to these places to feel close the presence of
God there.
The country of Jesus' birth is
actually called the Holy Land. 2 million visitors went to holy land
last year. You have heard about organized tours to the holy land..I
lead such a tour in 1984 with 40 people from my parish church in
Toronto. We spent 7 days there, visiting the holy places associated
with the life of Jesus. We went to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born,
to Nazareth where he grew up, to the river Jordan where he was
baptized, to the sea of Galilee where he taught and walked on the
water, to the garden of Gethsemane where he prayed and Calvary
where he was crucified.
Sometimes it was so hard to feel holy
in those places, because it is so commercialized. There are vendors
everywhere selling candles and other holy objects. In the town of
Cana, they were selling bottles of wine, in memory of the first
miracle of Jesus turning water in to wine.
So for Christians, Jerusalem is
definitely holy ground. For Moslems it is Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Every year millions of Muslims go to Mecca on pilgrimage. It is one
of the five pillars of Islam.
For Hindus, river Ganges...pilgrimage
to Varanasi and taking a bath in river Ganges is the life long dream
of every Hindu. Liberation from karma.
Another place we consider definitely
holy is the church. That is why we sing We are standing on holy
ground...The word sanctuary comes
from the Latin word, sanctus, which means holy. A
sanctuary means “a container for holy things.”
So in our human thinking, holy ground
is one of those designated places far away from our home, in other
countries or in special buildings. You rarely think of your home,
your office, or the Coral Square Mall, or the hard rock casino, or
1-95 or University drive as holy grounds.
But if you read the bible closely, you
will find that the book does not designate any special location as
holy.
What makes a
place holy is not the location itself, but the presence of God in
that location.
Since God is present everywhere, every
place should be holy. In fact every place is holy. It is our thinking
about it that makes it either holy or unholy.
Do you know where in the bible does the
phrase holy ground appears for the first time? It is an
amazing passage..every time I read it I get a chill..Read Ex: 3:1-6
The
bush was burning because God was there. The ground was holy because
God was present there. Since God is present everywhere, every place
should be holy right?
But
It is hard to believe that inner city America where gun violence is
rampant, is holy ground. It is hard to believe that a bar where
people are drunk and profanities are exchanged is holy ground. How do
we even consider seeing a house of prostitution as holy ground? Or a
home where children are abused or a spouse is battered? It is not
easy to see a decimated village in Iraq or a terrorist haven in Syria
as holy grounds.
So
we always have that dual reality in our mind, some places as holy
ground and others as unholy. I invite you today to break down that
wall of separation between holy and unholy places. The separation
between sacred and secular. I want you to see every inch of this
planet as holy. You know why, because God created this planet and he
is present everywhere.
It
is the presence of a Holy God that make a location holy. Yes our
world is so breathtakingly beautiful and so painfully broken. And God
is in BOTH places.
God
came to Moses in a burning bush to remind him that he stood on holy
ground regardless of the fact that he was on a suffering planet,
filled with people who live in slavery, who need freeing, who harm
one another through injustice, inequality, exploitation, and war.
Take off your shoes, God said. This is holy ground where humans are
in bondage.
You
can imagine why Moses was trembling. Hard to believe. Yet believe you
must. That is the only way you are going to change this world.
Marking off large areas of the
world as unholy, ungodly, filled with terrorists, rapists and
murderers is not going to change the world. When you do that, you
are saying that God is not in those places. That takes away from God
one of the prime qualities of God: Omnipresence.
Our notion of holy ground should expand
beyond the four walls of a church or a mosque or a temple and extend
to all corners of the earth. I
In the eyes
of God, there are no reserved places. The earth that God created and
found to be good, should not be any less good and holy for us.
When you look at the entire earth as
holy ground you will have a renewed respect for environmental
concerns. Polluted rivers and shrinking forests will bother you.
Seeing the amazon fires will break your heart. You will be so
conscious of how you drive and how much you drive, because every time
you drive you are leaving a carbon footprint on earth.
You will walk more and drive less. You
will shut of the engine rather than idle for long periods of time.
You will refrain from throwing things from the car to the street.
Ever since I became conscious of earth
as holy ground, I cannot even throw a gum wrap on the ground. In
olden days, I used to think, this little gum wrap is not going to
hurt the earth. Now I will put it my pocket and take it home and
empty it into a waste basket.
The image that helps me to be so
conscious of it is imagining the face of my mother. I love my mother
so much that I would never think of pasting mud on her face,
slapping her or disfiguring her face.
Every time you mistreat the earth,
you are mistreating your mother—holy mother earth.
Considering the earth as holy ground
can be extremely beneficial to a congenial life on the ground. As a
hospice chaplain, I have had great breakthroughs with difficult
patients when I walked into their homes imagining their home as holy
ground.
Looking at shopping malls as holy
ground has helped me find good parking spaces and enjoy positive
shopping experiences. Seeing congested highways as holy ground can
make driving less stressful. Experiencing our homes as holy ground
can help make family life harmonious.
The notion of earth as holy ground will
help us ease the grip on parcels of property as “mine.” We will
be less likely to yell at a kid who walks through our yard, or curse
a neighbor who lets his dog pee or poop on our grass.
When we walk on holy ground, we are
unlikely to hold a gun in our hand and stand our ground. We
know what that did to Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in 2012. If
George Zimmerman had considered his neighborhood as holy ground a
great tragedy could have been averted. Instead, as a neighborhood
watcher, he saw the little swath of real estate he occupied, as his
ground that needed to be protected from others at gun point.
When we love the earth as a whole,
there is no part of it that needs to be barricaded and claimed
exclusively as ours, because we are here only for a short period of
time because the earth ultimately belongs to God.
Between our birth and death is a span
of time, called life. It is a millisecond compared to the life-span
of the earth. The earth has been here for billions of years. And it
will be here after we are gone.
If you are struggling and wandering in
the valley of tears you may want to cultivate a love for the earth,
by meditating about our home planet. Walk on it barefoot, not on
concrete side walk, but grass. Feel the warmth.
Imagine a mother tightly embracing her
child, holding him closely to her. That is exactly what mother earth
does to us every day.
Think of
gravity as mother earth holding us closely to her bosom.
It is that loving embrace from the
earth that grounds and sustains you. Every time you walk out of your
house, say in your heart that you are going to walk, and drive on
holy ground. See how your life changes with that awareness. That is a
great way to live fearlessly in the world.
The heavens proclaim the glory of god.
Keep your eyes open and your ears tuned to see and hear that
proclamation.
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