Landscapes of the Sacred #2

Ashley Barham
12/2/15

In Landscapes of the Sacred, Belden lists four axioms that describe a sacred place. The second one is "Sacred place is an ordinary place made ritually extraordinary." This really makes a lot of sense to me because every place in history was once just a regular place not having any special meaning until something extraordinary happens there. This could be on a large scale such as Jesus' birth in the Christian and Jewish religion - Jesus, the savior of our universe, was born in a barn in a a wooden crate that holds farm animal food. Before His birth, that barn was not significant in anyway, it was just a wooden structure with livestock in it. However, once the Messiah was born in it, it became a Holy and sacred place for millions of people all around the world. This axiom could also speak to a smaller scale occurrence such as a garden where your fiancé proposed to you. A garden probably wasn't sacred to you or extremely relevant, but after the love of your life asks you to marry him in that garden, it becomes sacred to you. Therefore, every place is just a place until something spectacular happens there, whether it be a sacred place for a million people or a sacred place for just two people.