Fulfill the purposes of the Temple by making its ministries manifest in your hearts. It was built from your sacrifices and searching over many generations. Let it stand as a towering symbol of a people who knew injustice and strife on the frontier and who now seek the peace of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

[Adapted from “Awaken to Living Sanctuary,” by David Brock, Jan/Feb 2018 Herald, p. 17]

We are surprised by joy in the oddest places; impelled to take off our shoes or kneel in the most unlikely of spaces. We have learned the Holy One is not bound by geography or architecture. Harsh deserts work as do forested mountains. God may as well meet us as we step across black water running between plastic and cardboard hovels in a sprawling city slum.

Sacrament can happen while washing clothes on half-submerged rocks along a crowded river. Divinity may overwhelm us as we watch the rays of late-afternoon light make their way across the floor in a hospital room where our loved one is slowly dying. There is no predicting where God might break through the ordinary in our lives.

Humanity seems to have a need to create spaces of beauty, to build structures that evoke wonder.

The Temple is a place. It has a geography. It “speaks” in distinct architecture. The design defines its purpose. The architecture pulls at our deepest longings. Amid the monuments to our human prowess and the advance of knowledge, and among the dwellings for our physical comfort and safety, we need space dedicated to Mystery.

So, we have responded to the call to build this place; a place that breathes to life intuitions that affirm there is, above all, a Divinity “in whom we live, and move, and have our being” (E.A. Sovik in Velma Ruch’s Summoned to Pilgrimage). The shape of the Temple becomes a representation of the pilgrim’s journey. This is a road by which the human soul searches for the center and proceeds along the way from chaos to cosmos, from brokenness and confusion, to that still point where true life is to be found.

Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” What about the Temple shapes you as a follower of Christ?

Prayer Phrase

“I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).

Spiritual Practice

Light

Close your eyes and become centered with your breath. As you breathe gently in and out, reflect on the statement, “The light of God is in all things.” The light has a bright, soft beauty and radiates God’s healing love. The light of God reaches you and permeates you with a deep sense of peace. Rest in the light as it surrounds and fills you. Thank God that you live in God’s light, and it lives in you.

Today’s Prayer for Peace

Engage in a daily practice of praying for peace in our world. Click here to read today’s prayer and be part of this practice of peace.