That Which is Sacred

I saw an amazing production of Steve Waters‘ play “Temple” at the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley over the weekend. With a running time of 97 minutes, it’s not a lengthy show, but days later, I am still thinking about many of the characters, and the ideas and ideals they present.

The one character in the play who has no connection to the Cathedral, either as a building or an institution, is Gemma, the attorney representing the corporation of the City of London. She is young, intelligent, ambitious, and accustomed to dealing with even the most difficult situations with logic, law, and an efficiency utterly detached from human considerations.

When Gemma arrives at the church to discuss the situation with the Dean of the Cathedral, she enters smiling, and bearing a small box of cupcakes as an apparent means of fostering connection—breaking bread together in a 21st century way. She is sharp-dressed and sharp-minded, and, in the beginning at least, maintains control of her sharp tongue. When she leaves, she pointedly takes the cupcakes with her; they were not meant as a gift to be shared freely, but instead symbolize her expectation of (coerced, if necessary) cooperation.

The gap between Gemma and the Dean is not simply one of age, gender, or affiliation. What Gemma lacks, and what is key for the Dean, is the concept of the sacred. The Dean views the situation not simply as a person, but as a prelate with a duty of custodial care for both the building and institution of St. Paul’s Cathedral, as well as a priest with a duty of pastoral care for the people to whom it is their home of worship.

For Gemma, the Cathedral is a building, merely another structure on another plot of land within the geographical jurisdiction of the City. Gemma pointedly asks the Dean for the hierarchy of his organization, in order for her to understand the chain of authority. The Dean replies that he reports to a higher authority than a temporal governor. Gemma’s only interest in the hierarchy is in order for her to assign liability—that is, who she would sue on behalf of the City—should something untoward occur on church property as a result of the Occupy protest on its property. Since she cannot sue God, she will settle for suing the Dean.

Gemma has no understanding of the building’s importance to both the institution and the individuals who tend to it, and who attend it. For her, there is nothing special about it, except perhaps its historical significance. She is unable to comprehend that it is more than a building, and that the people who make up the Chapter (its governing body) are more than just functionaries and fiduciaries running a business.

This lack of understanding of the sacred cannot simply be attributed to Gemma’s lack of affiliation with the Anglican Church. Plenty of people who have some kind of connection with an organized religion or established place of worship likewise lack a sense of the sacred. It is an element missing in their personal education, in their family of origin, in their early cultural experiences, that they never acquired. And because they are incapable of understanding the sacred, they are limited in their ability to understand the point of view of those whose worldview encompasses the sacred, and are frustrated when their attempts to reduce the world to mechanical, numerical efficiency are rejected by those for whom the sacred is real.

For those who do not understand the inherent value of the sacred, everything simply has a price. For Gemma, there is no value to the building, or the institution, or to the work it does for its community; there is only the financial risk of “untoward events” for which someone must assume liability. She sees no value in the arguments of the clergy, and does not appreciate their values; all she sees is a very expensive lawsuit with incalculable financial consequences.

This lack of understanding extrapolates out to many in government, both in the US and elsewhere. They have no understanding of the value of the sacred within each person, within the world; there is only the cost of maintaining the population, which costs must be kept to a minimum, in order to ensure that their personal net worth can increase. Many of those in the US House of Representatives who voted last week to repeal the Affordable Care Act are devout church-goers who clearly have never bothered to listen to Jesus’ actual message. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing, and run their lives—and our world—accordingly.

As spirit workers, we focus on the sacred aspect of each person we work with, and imbue our work with that understanding in order to better serve our Gods and our clients. By honoring the sacred within ourselves, within our community, and in our world, we can manifest that energy in our daily lives. We may never convince the Gemmas of the world, those who willingly refuse to see, but we do what we can to create the difference we must make.