A Secular Focus
“ SACRAMENTS ARE OUTWARD AND VISIBLE SIGNS OF INWARD AND SPIRITUAL GRACE.”-Book of Common Prayer
The term sacrament is fairly new to me. Seeking sacrament is not. As an unchurched child, my experiences of God were unavoidably“ secular” and undeniably visceral.
I met God in the woods and the fields of my father’ s farm. God would be there in the mud and rot and dirt under my fingernails after a long day outside. I saw God in the seeds that became shoots that became stalks that became the corn that I would take into my body. There is something sacred in the growing of things, and I felt it deeply.
I felt a deep connection to the animals that I saw being birthed. I saw them struggling to live just like me. They were wild and captive at the same time. I could relate. I experienced their lives and the lives of all growing-and-thendying things as signs of God’ s radical grace. Unchurched and hungry for communion, I sought and discovered sacrament in the secular without knowing it.
As a teenager, my longing for God and
Christian community led me to the local Southern Baptist Church. There I encountered a tradition that preached the dangers of the secular world. Inside the reinforced doors of this church community, we were safe. Outside of those doors was an unholy world waiting and watching for signs of weakness. Segregation and exclusivity were armor against contamination of the spirit. In order to live as Christian, the distinction between Holy and secular was critical. I failed horribly at distinguishing between the two. I could not turn toward church at the expense of the only way I had ever authentically experienced God. So, I turned away.
Photography found me many years later with the birth of my first daughter. Her life and the intensity of our connection whispered of timelessness while also testifying to life’ s fragility. Loving so deeply and being connected so completely to another human being felt completely natural and absolutely necessary. On the other hand, it triggered an urgent need to
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