I rely on certain passages from the psalms as my daily guide; most essentially, the words from Psalm 119:105: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light for my path.” At the end of 2021, as I was leaving to drive the two hours home on the Mass Pike from my daughter’s place outside Boston, the thought came to me, “I wonder how far I am from that shrine I read about. I wonder if it’s even worth stopping by.” The thought came from “nowhere.” Just idling in my car eating an Everything Bagel in the parking lot of the drive-thru of the Dunkin Donuts. I had learned a lifetime ago that in the parking lots of fast-food chains, my life can change direction. The “sacred” isn’t something separate from the everyday. So I shouldn’t even put sacred in quotation marks. But I constantly have to remember that it isn’t separate from a medium coffee with two sugars and two creams; it’s got wings attached.
—from the book Gather the Fragments: My Year of Finding God’s Love
by Maureen O’Brien
2 thoughts on “Mapping the Everyday Sacred”
Your reflection brought to mind a portion of a Scripture regarding, and here I try to quote “Unknowingly Entertained Angels” We should be considering all peoples potential angels and treat them accordingly! Our Society makes us fear, but our Faith overcomes that fear.
Thank you for your insight!
Finding the sacred in the ordinary, “everydayness” of our lives is finding and choosing joy…
Thank you for this sharing.