Sacramental Life: Take Off Your Shoes! by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

The paradox bursts upon us when we encounter that unimaginably other One in the midst of what is most familiar to us.

Allow me to begin with a story. Some insights of our human heart are so deep that only a story can help us bring them home to ourselves and share them with others. The basic sense of what we call in abstract terms, "sacramental life,'' is one of those deep insights. The story I have chosen comes out of the Biblical tradition. Yet, the basic insight expressed in it belongs to the common treasure of all religions and will be found in stories from many different traditions in the East as well as in the West.

Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the Mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place where on thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. (Exodus 3: 1-6)

Has this story become too familiar to make us still awestruck? Or can we recover the power of this vision? A bush ablaze, yet unharmed! It is one of the images that left a lasting impression on the religious mind throughout the ages, lasting because reinforced by daily fresh experience. In its immediate context, the blazing flame amidst the desert bramble stands for the divine Presence among God's people; it stands for "the Holy One of Israel.” But in a more general sense the thornbush burning, yet unburnt, is a daily sight -- daily, yet ever amazing -- for a heart that sees all things aflame with divine fire.

How staggering is the paradox that shines from the Burning Bush becomes clear only when later prophets translate that image into the formula, "the Holy One in the midst of you.” We must remember that holiness here does not mean moral perfection so much as God's unimaginable otherness. The paradox bursts upon us when we encounter that unimaginably other One in the midst of what is most familiar to us.

Two attitudes are apt to blind us to that encounter: worldliness and otherworldliness. Worldliness sees merely the bramble; other­worldliness sees merely the fire. But to see, with the eyes of the heart, one in the midst of the other, that is the secret of sacramentality. We shall never understand that secret as long as we look for it in Someone else’s report, no matter how exalted the experience reported. That is why I must appeal to your own unique personal encounter with the "Burning Bush.'' Psychology calls those moments of private vision in which reality appears transfigured "peak experiences.” We all have had these experiences, though some people are more alert to them than others, or more ready to admit them. Peak experiences are always a gift, a surprise. In a flash the things at hand are seen in a new light that slakes the thirst of our heart for ultimate meaning.

Although I repeat that you will have to remember a peak experience of your own in order to understand sacramentality let me prime the pump by quoting an account by a friend of mine, Don Johnson:

“I walked out onto a dock in the Gulf of Mexico, I ceased to exist. I experienced being a part of the sea breeze, the movement of the water and the fish, the light rays cast by the sun, the colors of the palms and tropical flowers. I had no sense past or future. It was not a particularly blissful experience: it was terrifying. It was the kind of ecstatic experience I'd invested a lot of energy in avoiding. I did not experience myself as the same as the water, the wind, and the light, but as participating with them in the same system of movement. We were all dancing together!” (note 1).

“Together” is the key word here. A peak experience is a moment when we "get it all together" as is commonly said. All those rifts and cracks of separation, polarity, alienation, which we ordinarily experience are healed in one glance. "Like a saint 's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see... For a second there is meaning" (note 2). This is the secret of which you catch sight: everything has meaning. And one glimpse of that secret makes everything whole. The secret is the secret of sacramentality, the mystery that God's life is communicated through all things, just as meaning is communicated through words. The two belong together, meaning and word, God and the world. The two belong together, without confusion, and inseparable: meaning and word, God and the world.

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