You are not here....

Last night Krista and I read one of my favourite sections from "Little Gidding." This section always strikes me as being so intricately connected to our human desire for sacred places. The challenge seems to be to remember that no matter which places have been hallowed in the past, all places can potentially be made sacred.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.