A Blessing For the Sacred

Paul Dunion

As religion may have disappointed and

disillusioned you, you may forgot that

a religion’s shadow does not dismiss the

sacred. It demands recognition, even if

it must waitfor your tolerance for the

contemptible to wane. The sacred doesn’t

forget you. The ancients remind us to understand

the sacred as “confirming what truly matters.”

Shed all naiveté! This confirming business

is not written somewhere. You’ll find only

suggestions and you are asked to stay in the

movement of confirming and not arriving.

You are asked to exercise enough courage

to forsake claims of knowing the sacred. You

cannot know the sacred,you can only live the

sacred.You are either living intimately with

thesacredor you’ve allowed vanity and

self-righteousness to separate you.

You can always return. The sacred vigilantly

holds a place for you. Hence, the ancients offer

a second meaning to the sacred,“to sacrifice”.

Your homecoming becomes inevitable as you

live the question: What sacrifice is being

asked of me?

These sacrifices are not mostly about martyrdom.

However, they will feel like challenging forfeitures.

You will only be leaning away from vanity toward

authentic self-love, away from self-righteousness

toward humility, and leaning away from want

toward gratitude and generosity.

You become more willing to confirm again and

again what truly matters because you have

become a steward of the Light. And in your

stewardship, sacrifices are no longer felt to

be a severe hardship. These sacrifices simply

deepen your ability to be a bearer of Light.