A Sacred Place

I drive the same course to work four days a week, and I rarely miss noticing the simple white cross on the side of the road. It marks the place of departure of a soul from a body. The cross declares to all who pass, “this is a Sacred place.”

It brings to my mind a question. Why is the place of one’s death sacred?

Yes, the place one’s spirit and soul separate from one’s body can be memorialized. Yet, consider with me the preciousness of the place one is welcomed into this world, our place of birth: where our journey, our personal chapter in the history of mankind opens.

And then, consider also the daily entries into our book of life. Is not each day, each action, each moment shared with another worthy of reverence?

We know not what a day will bring forth: tomorrow, the cross on the side of the road may be a memorial to our own passing from this life. Or we may pass it daily for decades in a trance of routine, blithely unaware of the moments ticking away into eternity.

Is it asking for too much awareness to honor life with reverence while we are living it?

We celebrate with joy the birth of a baby, and rightfully so. New life brings hope.

At Christmas, millions of people celebrate a birth in a manger in the little village of Bethlehem. We rejoice as we remember, once again, that God came to earth as a vulnerable infant. He was entrusted to fallible humans for nurture and protection.

Little more than 30 years later, He allowed Himself to be beaten, and hung on a harsh wood cross. Innocent of any wrong-doing, He sacrificed His life to save ours. But it is not His birth, or His death alone which we must remember. It is the change they can make in our daily lives which demand reverent attention . Let us not focus only on the cross, or the manger, but on the Life which He offers us each day.