The Spiritual Renewal Center in Syracuse (where I serve as a part-time spiritual director) is in the process of moving. Its new home on Lancaster Avenue next to All Saints Church will undoubtedly be an improvement over its current facility on Court Street. The new space was once a school and is now being renovated according to the specific needs of the Center. Parking will be plentiful. And its proximity to Syracuse University will be an added benefit.
I have frequented the location on Court Street for fifteen years, first (and ever since) as a directee, then as a director-in-training, and now as a staff member. Despite its several inconveniences, this facility has been a place of welcome and peace that has often been a “balm in Gilead” to soothe my anxious soul. Of course, it’s the people who occupy the space who have made it so hospitable, and so the new facility will be just as inviting. But this was the physical, tangible place where those blessings became manifest to me. So when I realized this week that I was leaving the building for the last time, I paused.
I took a long look at the large open room where I have often taken time to sit quietly, read, or write reflectively. I stood in the doorway of the big classroom where I have given talks. I sauntered through the library where I have perused and checked out books on spirituality. I walked through the fair trade gift shop. I entered the “living room” appointed with a circle of couches and chairs where for two years I met with fellow directors-in-training, and where I have typically seen my own directees.
All those spaces will be recreated in the new site. And those who discover the Center for the first time there will no doubt find it just as warm and welcoming as I did when I first came to the old site. But places where we experience God are sacred. Places where we have regularly encountered God’s grace are holy sanctuaries. That is why, even though this move is all for the good, I feel a twinge of grief.
It would hardly have been appropriate for me to mark the spot we are leaving by setting up a stone altar, the way Jacob did at Bethel after meeting God there. But before I turned to leave for the last time, I quietly offered a prayer of thanksgiving for this place where God’s grace has been made real to me for so many years.
Sacred places, of course, can easily become idols. That’s why God objected when David pondered building a Temple in Jerusalem. “I’ve been doing just fine in a tent!” God said to him in so many words (2 Samuel 7:6). And when Peter tried to build structures on the mountain to memorialize and capture the moment of Jesus’ transfiguration, the vision ended abruptly and his plans were scuttled (Mark 9:5-8). It was a place to be awed by Jesus’ full glory, but not a place to stay.
We serve a God who is always on the move. That means, if we are paying attention, lots of ground becomes hallowed, not just a few places here and there. So while we make the most of the places God provides for us to grow in faith and understanding, we also need to be ready for God to lead us to new places. I’m speaking, of course, both literally and figuratively. The physical relocation of the Spiritual Renewal Center is a metaphor of the spiritual “relocation” that God often leads us through. We must not get too attached to one way of experiencing God – or church. Otherwise, we may find ourselves worshiping at an altar that God has already vacated. Finally, we’re all pilgrims on a journey. We Christians are a people of “the Way” (as the early church was called), serving a Savior who called himself the Way.
So we are always ready to move, to follow, as we are led. But along this Way, it’s important to give thanks for the sacred sites and the holy moments where and when God meets us with grace, so that we never forget God’s faithfulness to us.
©2014 by J. Mark Lawson
Comments