What is sacred ground? What makes a place holy? How will we know it? Jacob didn’t know it, not until he had a dream. And in the dream he had a promise. Then he woke up, I did not know this was holy ground, and then he made a monument to his discovery, or rather, to its holiness.
We can imagine him running in from stage left, looking about distractedly, and then, finally, sleep overcoming him, laying down his head upon a stone. A stone that in the morning was transformed into a monument. This certain place, as the story calls it, that Jacob did not recognize, in the night set itself apart.
Angels, messengers of God, communicated between heaven and earth, and then the LORD was right beside him.
The promise he heard, the promise made to him, was the promise that Abraham, his father, and Isaac had received before him. It has been remade. It is new, in his hands, and old again.
Jacob has received the promise - from God. Not only the blessing stolen from his father. Now he has been chosen, like it or not, and he goes on from this place a man newly charged with a mission. He must carry forward, what he has received alone, into a new beginning, a new life.
He came into this place alone, and here he heard God. He was able to hear him, now. He is no longer son or brother, he is not yet husband or father. He is just Jacob, alone, before God.
And it is in this place, this in between place, on his journey from one place to another, one state to another, from son and brother to husband and father, that he is alone enough to listen.
When are we listening? When are we in a holy place? When are we on sacred ground?
There are plenty of times I know to touch stone, to call back a memory of a special place or person, and those times and places I cherish. I hope to experience them again soon. But the holy place is different: it is where we experience something of the sacred mystery that is God.
This is not necessarily a big deal, with trumpets, or a certificate. It may be in an otherwise insignificant place, or a place we did not know. Jacob said, “I did not know this was holy ground.” But now he does. Something changed. In him. In what he experienced. In what was there all along.
It may have been there all along, for you or me. But we did not know it. And that’s okay.
The spirit comes to us. We seek holiness. We do. We seek to do God’s will. Or an experience. Or just to be better today so we can be better tomorrow, than we were yesterday.
Where will we find sacred ground? Or is that the right question? When will it find us?
And where will we go from there?
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following Your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that, if I do this, You will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust You always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for You are ever with me, and You will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen.
– Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, page 79. (https://sacredpoetryworkshop.com/a-prayer-of-unknowing-by-thomas-merton/)
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