Is everything sacred?
Wendell Berry has a line that there are no places that are not sacred; there are only sacred places and desecrated places. I like this thought. It accords with a view that sees the earth as irrevocably blessed, and a view of landscape as enchanted.
I've been listening to Geraldine Brooks' lyrical lecture on “Home,” the first in her Boyer series (here). She muses that our word “home” comes from a root meaning “haunt,” and I like that too. The places we call home are haunted, not only by us, but by memory, history, association, and affection. Earth as home is haunted, enchanted, blessed. Sacred in a way we can't efface, though we can desecrate it.
The disenchantment of the world, said Weber, characterised the fate of our times. Our fate seems now to be indelibly linked to a warming climate and a planet in decline. The darkest vision of the climate catastrophisers has humans as ghosts. I wonder if the reversal of climate damage will come in part through re-enchantment, through a reconsideration of the sacredness of our home.
I've been listening to Geraldine Brooks' lyrical lecture on “Home,” the first in her Boyer series (here). She muses that our word “home” comes from a root meaning “haunt,” and I like that too. The places we call home are haunted, not only by us, but by memory, history, association, and affection. Earth as home is haunted, enchanted, blessed. Sacred in a way we can't efface, though we can desecrate it.
The disenchantment of the world, said Weber, characterised the fate of our times. Our fate seems now to be indelibly linked to a warming climate and a planet in decline. The darkest vision of the climate catastrophisers has humans as ghosts. I wonder if the reversal of climate damage will come in part through re-enchantment, through a reconsideration of the sacredness of our home.