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adv. archaic. toward what place, in what direction [1150-1200, Middle English]
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About Me
- occassia
- Singer Creek Canyon, Willamette Valley, Pacific Plate, United States
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31 comments:
hmmmmm..... worthy of not being exploited? purposeful, even...
From my friend Jerry:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78164818@N00/3097018406/
"This is a picture of an actual (sacred) shrine I found in a tiny town in Mexico on The Day of The Dead. Yep...we all have our own ideas of what is sacred!..."
Starr, doesn't that rather beg the question, "Is it possible to be worthy of exploitation?"
Hmmm. Well, I tried concocting a ‘definition’ and kept coming up with a string of esoteric words. So lemme tell ya a story...
I was at an airport not long ago, and riding one of those moving sidewalks toward my departure gate. It was crowded, very busy. Carrying my camera case in one hand, flight bag on the other shoulder. I was coming up on that bottleneck place where you get off of the walkway. Just as I was about to hop off, the little kid in front of me ran into the middle of the crowd, and was in danger of being trampled as he tripped up people getting off the walkway. In about a half a second I tossed the camera overboard, dropped my flight bag and simply scooped up the little kid as we all slid to a stop in the middle of the terminal. (Parents of toddlers will recognize this scoop-up as a familiar move.) Wasn’t my kid. I could have let him take his chances in the crowd. But no, I was required to observe a kind of sacred duty to save the kid. Any kid. I turned and passed off the toddler to his waiting mom and got a barely polite grunt of acknowledgment. She smiled, though, when she has repossessed her toddler and was sure I wasn’t a kidnapper.
Lesson: Kid sacred, pentax camera not. There’s a kind of universal requirement – almost like a spiritual law of physics – that one respect and nurture the life of a baby. Baby survival is sacred. Only socio/psycho-paths are exempt. Karma deals with them differently.
Which brings me to the other component of “sacred”. It’s tied to the universe by karma. Karma repays you for your observances or violations of sacredness. Dharma is involved, informing society and the universe (and you yourself) whether you are worthy, depending upon your observance of the sacred. This all sounds very complicated, but it’s not. Used to be we all were born into and grew up in a culture where sacredness was easily defined and easily understood. There were a set of rules and spiritual organization which gave the universe its due from each person, each community. You lived with it every day. I.e., "Don’t bad-mouth the Goddess", "Turn over a part of the wine for sacraments", "Sacrifice babies only occasionally." ... “Help polish the marble columns on the Parthenon.” This served to keep a diverse set of individuals organized in a way that kept them connected to nature and the universe. It eventually degraded into ‘religion’.
So, as far as a definition, “Sacred” is where reality intersects the spiritual requirements placed upon us by nature and the universe. Or something like that.
Yeah, it’s very subject to exploitation. There are far too many babies in the world. N’est-ce pas?
I would have to say that it is anything that is so perfect that we should not feel we need to get in there and mess it up.
I like Merriam-Webster definition -
"entitled to reverence and respect"
Oops...'anonymous'..that's me.
Todd
a point (a mountain, a temple, a child, a promise), a "thin" spot, where we recognize or sense the permeability or possibility of transcending our limited experience of reality
Belief in something for which we set boundaries. But this requires that we honor the boundaries of the sacredness of others' beliefs.
Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Hopefully what we hold sacred is worthy of it.
DW
Tom, I think you are in part saying, "You know it when you see it," and also that in a a multi-cultural society we don't all "see" it the same way.
So there is perhaps a kind of Platonic ideal of The Sacred, imperfectly reflected by each human culture? Are we hardwired to experience something we call "sacred?"
It certainly does seem to be a core experience for many of us.
Katie, that's a lovely definition!
Only, how do we define "perfect"? ;-)
DW, are you thinking of boundaries which define the sacred? Like, "On this side, everything is sacred. On that side it's not."
"So there is perhaps a kind of Platonic ideal of The Sacred, imperfectly reflected by each human culture?"
I'm on the cusp with this. On one had, being at times immersed in my culture's spirituality, I go for the idea of a Platonic Ideal. OTOH, having experienced enuff reality beyond culture, there may be something like an absolute sacredness which the universe requires us to perceive.
"Are we hardwired to experience something we call "sacred?""
I think the answer is yes. I think the evidence is conclusive.
Martha, is the experience sacred, or is it the the mountain or promise which is sacred? I guess I mean, does sacredness exist independent of our perception of it?
Why should I care about "the sacred."
Why should I believe that "transcendence" of our limited experience of "reality" is possible?
JCD, you are in no way obligated to care about the sacred, or believe in transcendence. ;-)
Do you not find either a useful concept? Have you never felt, however subjectively, that you were in touch with the sacred or the transcendent? Do you use either word?
I took JCD's first question, "Why should I care about "the sacred."[?] as a Socratic inguiry; i.e. JCD was asking for the important components of the concept.
On the face of it, though, there are consequences to not caring about the concept. (spiritual, personal and "transcendent" consequences.) These may or may not be trivial.
The consequences of publicly DEMONSTRATING a lack of care of "the sacred", however, are sharp and immediate consequences, visited upon one with sometimes dire results.
Can you expand on that a bit Tom?
And I think my questions to JCD are also in the nature of a Socratic inquiry, altho I'm too fuzzy on the subject to in any way direct the discussion.
It's not so much that anybody should "care" about the sacred. I suppose I'm inquiring about what underlies our evaluations regarding right and wrong, good and bad. The common (if not universal) human experience of a sense of sacredness seems related to this, altho perhaps not causally.
What is sacred? We (as humans) have and do hold many things "sacred". Could be a person (The Dali Lama), a place (that shrine in Mexico), a thing (life), or a concept (the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). So what dose holding these as sacred do for us? They are not sacred unless we believe they are. (Tom, not even life is sacred in some cultures. you chose to hold the safety of the child as sacred, not all did or would). So what I am rambling on about is that I see the meaning of sacred as being something that, as we hold it so, makes us (as an individual or culture) feel good, or better, or even righteous about ourselves.
occassia asked...
"Can you expand on that a bit Tom?"
Gee, after posting the intolerably longest comment so far, I don’t feel comfortable with too much more expansion. (G) Lemme see if ‘succinct’ is an option:
Re: caring about “the sacred”. If you make a conscious attempt not to care, or even if you just avoid "the sacred", your soul will rot.
For those who don’t believe in such nonsense as souls, shutting oneself off from the personal, spiritual or cultural notions of the sacred will shut you off from vital information transmitted to you by reality, and – to use JCD’s term – further degrade “(y)our limited experience of "reality". I’d expand more on this but another friend is working on an essay to bring this into clarity for me and I’m waiting patiently for that.
Re: DEMONSTRATING that you don’t care about “the sacred”: What happens if you dump over the table and let the candles set fire to the picture of Brad Pitt on Jerry’s shrine? What happens if you just stand by passively when the candles ignite the sheets, demonstrating a complete disregard for “the sacred”? The mommacitas will beat you into pico de gallo, that's what will happen. Sheesh, talk about “transcendence” .....
A word with so many nuances. Some see it as a paean to the Divine, some as an unquestionable moral imperative, some as a shield against encroaching reality. The Evangelist, the Seeker, and the Skeptic.
just a quick point from a historian's view. different cultures and societies have called many contradictory things "sacred" but we can agree on what they meant by this; a dictionary definition will suffice. the real question is what can we learn about those peoples (or ourselves) based on what they have designated as sacred?
Hmm. What sorts of things would you expect to learn, o historian, from those things cultures have designated as sacred? In what ways would these understandings be useful?
Tom,
What I'm getting here is that your opinion, view is "sacred", and that any one that see life, living, the universe in a way other than yours. their soul will rot.
But what is the meaning of sacred? Is it not just what each of us decides it is. My sacred may not be what yours is, or anyones for that matter. But it is still sacred to me.
I don't think that's what Tom is saying. Could be wrong.
Oh dear, perhaps "succinct" won't do!
"Do you not find either a useful concept?"
Not really, or at least not in a way that would treat "the sacred" as sacred. Sociologically, the things determined as "sacred" can perform some interesting functional roles, and it is useful in understanding how a society works to take a look at their roles.
"Have you never felt, however subjectively, that you were in touch with the sacred or the transcendent?"
No. And it is disturbing to me when people talk about "being in touch" with transcendent things. If you are in touch with it, it is not transcendent. If you can possibly come into contact with a thing it cannot possibly be transcendent. To say otherwise is sort of like telling me you can produce a five sided triangle.
I also think the entire quest to define what "we" mean when we call something "sacred" begs the question: for what reason should I think a single definition of "the sacred" is even possible? Why should "we" all agree that we mean the same thing when we say something is "sacred."
"If you make a conscious attempt not to care, or even if you just avoid "the sacred", your soul will rot."
It's a good thing I don't have one, or mine would be stinking to high heaven by this point.
Russell, you mis-perceive me. I was answering Occassia's original question by stating what EYE meant by "sacred". I'm prolly not communicating well. I sometimes assume a too-jeremiad voice. Nor do I require that you - or anyone else - buy into my rantings. My only credentials are that I have a considerable number of years of acquaintance with soul-rot. YMMV.
I actually agree with YOU, Russ: "My sacred may not be what yours is, or anyones for that matter. But it is still sacred to me."
What I meant to convey is that I believe there is out there in the Universe stuff that is "sacred", and that it matters on this plane of reality. It's certainly not the same for everyone.
JCD is correct to observe, "Why should "we" all agree that we mean the same thing when we say something is "sacred?"
We shouldn't.
Occassia wasn't requiring that "we" all agree that we mean the same thing, methinks. (I assume she was open to gathering in quite a few variants in defining "the sacred.")
But, among us, there is utility in arriving at some working consensus of the parameters of meanings for 'sacred'. Elsewise we can forgo any discussion or communication with other individuals about anything. Consequently, we'd all live in our solipsistic little bubbles and awake blinky-eyed and dumbfounded when some viewpoint other than our own suddenly appears to have popped that bubble and to have trumped our pristine thoughts.
"Everybody believes in something, ... I believe I'll have another drink!" -- Bogart
JCD:
"...[I]t is disturbing to me when people talk about "being in touch" with transcendent things. If you are in touch with it, it is not transcendent. If you can possibly come into contact with a thing it cannot possibly be transcendent. To say otherwise is sort of like telling me you can produce a five sided triangle."
Oh, in some dimension, I'm sure you can!
"Being in touch with transcendence" is only an oxymoronic notion if you are using a special-case definition of transcendence, such as perhaps a Kantian one.
Definitions are not quite the same thing as meaning(s).
What people generally mean when they speak of transcendence is "something bigger than me" or "something beyond my everyday existence." Using that more broadly understood (albeit imprecise) concept, I'd guess that most of us would say, yes, that we had experienced something of that kind, some of us on multiple --not to say, many-- occasions.
.....
When we speak of the transcendent, do we mean the same thing as the sacred?
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