Sacred Space

On Sunday January 8 I will be teaching a series of adult Sunday School classes on "Sacred Space" based on my sabbatical studies from 2000 that morphed into return trips, research and writing. Why should this be of interest to anyone?
All people have an innate awareness of the "sacred". In Romans 1:20 Paul writes "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible thhough they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse." You know it when you encounter it. You also know it's not there no matter how hard people try to fabricate it. The "holy", the "sacred" is something we were made to participate in. So, what is it?
My studies were based on three disciplines. The first was to visit as many Romanesque churches in southern France as we could find. Romanesque defines that period in architecture and church history around the 11th century. These churches were constructed relatively free from the influence of the wealth of royalty and reflected more the intention to establish the Christian faith. So we (Martha, Liz and I) wandered through about 29 churches (more since then on our return trips). I would photograph, sit, read, pray and reflect on how these churches told the story of the sacred (or not). The other discipline was to read the entire Bible in those 2 months, cover to cover, underlining all that I could find about sacred space. The third discipline was to write every other day in a journal, charting my heart and observations.
Over the past few years the journal turned into a paper and the paper became a manuscript of eight distinct aspects of the sacred. It will be those eight dimensions that I will reflect on and explore in the Sunday School classes at Montecito Covenant Church. I am really enjoying exploring the distinctly California nature of the sacred, by visiting the Missions and other churches in and around Santa Barbara.