The commander of the army of the L ORD said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you stand is holy.” And Joshua did so.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear things like this, places in Scripture that are designated as “holy”, I imagine a green spot amongst the desert, a slight spotlight on the holy space, designating THAT spot as holy. Or it’s a perfect picture of whatever it is: rolling hills, picturesque dunes, symmetrical craggy bushes. I don’t imagine the mundane. Average. Ugly. Undiscernible.
The accompanying reflection to today’s reading is worth repeating in whole, as I think it’s beautiful, and helped me see past the expectations of perfection, when seeking a holy place. It is from Sister Joan Chittister, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily.
“Contemplative prayer, converting prayer, is prayer that sees the whole world through incense—a holy place, a place where the sacred dwells, a place to be made different by those who pray, a place where God sweetens living with the beauty of all life.
Contemplative prayer is prayer that leads us to see our world through the eyes of God. It unstops our ears to hear the poverty of widows, the loneliness of widowers, the cry of women, the vulnerability of children, the struggle of outcasts, the humanity of enemies, the insights of the uneducated, the tensions of bureaucrats, the fears of rulers, the wisdom of the holy, the power of the powerless. . . .
We pray to understand things as they are, not to ignore and avoid and deny them. We pray so that when the incense disappears we can still see the world as holy.”
I love the part where she names all of the things we might see more clearly, more holy, if we see through the eyes of God. The humanity of enemies, insights of the uneducated, tensions of bureaucrats. These are all things we understand as true in our head, that enemies are human, that the uneducated can be wise. That bureaucrats have tension (having worked decades in government, I appreciate this inclusion in her list).
This morning, I’m thinking about the other things we can add to that list from our own lives. Where else does praying contemplatively, seeing through God’s eyes help me see the holy in the hidden?
Seeing the world through the eyes of God can help me hear the insecurity of the conceited, the fear of the confused, the defeatedness of the addict, the pain of the abuser.
I don’t think of myself as a contemplative, who I imagine as peaceful, still, intuitive souls, who rest in God’s presence with ease. I don’t rest with ease, nor am I still very much. But I can begin to access the notion of being a contemplative with Chittister’s image as someone who sees everything through incense, which is used to mark a place as holy. When I look out my window, or in my house, do I see it all as holy? The people, the objects, me? In my head, I believe that to be true. And I appreciate her very sensory way of describing it, seeing things through incense during prayer, and when the incense lifts, the holy remains.
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