Sacred Art and Dedications

Since markers matter, we ask artists to capture the essence of our sacred places. But art itself evokes the sacred, so that we come to a final kind of sacred site. Some places are holy neither inherently nor by virtue of their history. They are our own artistic creations that just happen to be built in one place rather than another, but which then make a place holy by virtue of their history. They are our own artistic creations that just happen to be built in one place rather than another. But which then make a place holy by virtue of their being there. The best example is Solomon's Temple. As the Bible tells us, God had to make the divine presence dwell there after the Temple was constructed. The Temple was only potentially a marker of the fact that someday the place would become holy, when, that is, God moved in.

It is precisely because of our own cultural artifacts, as beautiful as they may be, constitute only potential sacrality that we insist on dedicating them. No one dedicates the Grand Canyon or Old Faithful. We know they are sacred. But Solomon had to dedicate his Temple to invite God's presence to transform the potential holiness into the real thing; and the prophets remind us that if worshipers there act unethically, God may well leave, rendering what is left an empty shell. All the more so, our own buildings which inhabit suburban street corners or convenient hills demand dedication ceremonies that invite God in.

In sum, our map of sacred space contains sacred sites and their marker; and then markers for markers. Some sites are holy because they suggest the inherent presence of God; history confers sacrality on other places; but finally, we human beings dare to build sacred markers, generally building of some sort or other that we then dedicate to make sure God really comes there. Sacred maps thus begin as the reported tremors of God's presence in nature or in history, but at our best we emulate God by creating sacred sites of our own. Our maps of the sacred are thus a human recognition of the traces of God's presence, on the one hand, and a road map of the human spirit at its finest on the other.