SACRED MOMENTS - Asking The Question

I'm about to begin a series of articles under the banner of Sacred Moments. I thought this explanatory preface might be necessary to lay out my approach. 

It might be tempting to divide what is sacred into two. - What we hold sacred, can refer to secular values we uphold and wish to exemplify -  A sense of the sacred, can be an experience pointing towards something other, the divine in all the various configurations of it that can be imagined.With Sacred Moments I'm more concerned with the latter, whilst at the same time unconvinced such a strict bifurcation can ever be cleanly maintained. There is inevitably some interplay, and this in itself is worth examining.

These articles intend to explore on an experiential level what a sense of the sacred is and has been for me. There is an inbuilt autobiographical slant, usually based sround ncidents that have popped up in a multiplicity of places and circumstances, not just in a religious context or in nature. Sacred Moments simply will note where these have occurred. In the writing of them it has felt similar to an act of archaeology, excavating, identifying, conserving and then placing them in the museum of my Self. To be curious about my own history, how I have told it, and how I now tell it. Noting the shifts in emphasis and implied meaning.

Though a sense of the sacred appears to arise out of nowhere, they do nonetheless have a context, a particular setting. Even if where they are situated doesn't necessarily appear to make much sense of it, nor explain it. I'm attempting to adopt the broadest perspective on what can be conceived of as a sacred experience. I don't think a sense of the sacred is solely about the spiritual highs.

I forget, as do we all, that we have had any such experience, and still do have sensations of the sacred. However evasive or difficult they might be to pin down or own up to. They get easily explained away, denied, rationalised or simply ignored as we quickly move on to the next instance. Sacred Moments is a vehicle for reclaiming them as things worthy of note, and sometimes even to find that they have had a greater influence upon you, perhaps more than you've previously credited them with. 

You cannot chase, hunt down or develop an expectation where and when a sense of the sacred will happen. Similar to happiness you cannot will a sense of the sacred into being. Which is not to say there is an absence of reciprocity. There can be causal encounters arising 'seemingly' in response to intent, but that 'seemingly' is not to be too readily overlooked.

The primary thing is noticing. And in that noticing I'm already recognising themes and patterns. So in my more left brain moments of certainty or cynicism, my tendency to categorically deny or begrudge a perceived lack of spiritual experiences, these examined patterns will make that a more difficult stance to uphold.