Where will our sacred spaces be?

Whether you are religious are not, it is that time of year that feels sacred. What I mean by this is that the things around us and the events that take place seem to be loaded with greater meaning - a significance beyond what meets the eye - than at other times of year. So much happens that stirs our sense of reverence for the past, the present and the future. The season offers us a momentary annual glimpse into that larger thing that we are a part of: humanity, or God or both. If this holiday season didn't exist, we would need to create it because everything I have seen and heard in my life's odyssey tells me that we have a distinct human need to belong and show respect for that larger beautiful, all-encompassing and multifaceted thing, whatever we want to call it. The question is whether we need certain spaces that we designate as sacred for us to experience this.

This question was brought to the forefront of my mind by two relatively recent debates ongoing on Sweden. One is whether Uppsala Cathedral, one of the oldest (1435) and largest places of Christian worship in Northern Europe should be turned into a public museum in order to make it affordable to continue to maintain it. The argument goes that the size of the congregation has become too small to continue to meet the economic needs of the Cathedral, and that it is awkward for a relatively small congregation to worship in such an enormous space. The second debate revolves around whether churches are suitable places to hold end-of-term school ceremonies in an increasingly multi-cultural society.

Sweden is in many ways a modern, forward-looking country with a highly practical outlook on how to create a good society. These discussions are in my mind a reflection of this fact rather than a lack of respect for the institution of the church. On the other hand, I am left wondering where it is that we are going to meet in the future to experience that mutual sense of sacredness that to me is a basic human need and one of those things that differentiates us from animals.

As I drive down the narrow, dirt road from our local Church to the landing docks across from our island ominously called Sluts brygga (end dock), I warm my spirit with a peek into the windows of the rust red houses. At the horse stable a group of young girls wearing boots splattered with horse muck sit huddled around a candle-lit table in the middle of which there is an open canister of Annas gingerbread biscuits and an empty bottle of Swedish root beer available at Christmas. They are enjoying this special moment of togetherness and light in the pitch darkness of the Swedish winter. Perhaps they experience this moment together in the horse stall as sacred to them.

A glance into another candelabra-lit window reveals the farmer's wife receiving a paper cut-out of an ice-crystal that her youngest grandchild has just made for her. The evening stew bubbles in the background on the stove. Paper crystals from her seven grandchildren are pasted along the entire length of one of her walls. Yet each time that she receives a new one from one of her grandchildren it is special and, yes, perhaps even sacred to her.  

Another neighbour adjusts the lights on one of the trees lining the driveway to his home. New Year's is still to be celebrated and things must look right for this. He stands in front of the great tree, which he very likely played in as a boy, and admires it for a moment before returning to the light and warmth of his house. That moment of appreciating the illuminated tree of childhood is precious to this man and, yes, perhaps even sacred to him.

A warm place in a stable, the hearth in the kitchen, childhood's tree: each of these can in some way feel sacred to us. Yet, no one living along the length of the road leading from Sluts brygga to the almost 1000-year-old church at the entrance to this community would compare the sacredness of those places with sitting in this space of restrained Lutheran architectural beauty that is the local church with the other members of their community. This is not because everyone along the length of this road is deeply religious ? some people are and some are not. It is mostly because the church represents that moment of tradition in which this community gathers in this space which is infused with the strength that comes from being together and from feeling a part of something great and meaningful.

I grew up watching people bowing before their ancestors, the Buddha, Allah, the elements and other deities.  My mother came from a Lutheran tradition and my father from a Catholic but I was raised with neither. Now I live in a country where tradition is formed out of an interesting blend of Viking, peasant folklore and Christian culture. I am open to the idea that people can experience that essential sense of belonging in a wide variety of ways and places. Yet, the recent news here in Sweden has got me wondering how it would be if this little community no longer had the possibility of experiencing certain moments of sacredness together in that beautiful structure at the head of the road leading to Sluts brygga.

I untie the icy-stiff ropes that secure my little boat to this place that in the winter feels like the beginning of pure darkness. That is, all except for my home on the island across the lake that has become my special place of meaning. As my little engine chugs its way through the thickening water, the eloquent Tennysonian words that bellow down from the hill at Skansen in Stockholm on New Year's Eve echo in my head: "Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky?.Ring out the old, ring in the new?." Yes, but isn't it wonderful that there are certain places where everything feels unified and where time doesn't matter?

Letter from the Island, my column is published in America in Nordstjernan, visit www.nordstjernan.com and www.julielindahl.com for more information.