Sanctuary

We come as we are—no hiding, no acting, no fear. We come with our materialism, our pride, our petty grievances against our neighbours, our hypocritical disdain for those judgmental people in the church next door. We come with our fear of death, our desperation to be loved, our troubled marriages, our persistent doubts, our preoccupation with status and image. We come with our addictions—to substances, to work, to affirmation, to control, to food. we come with our differences; be they political, theological, racial, or socioeconomic. We come in search of sanctuary, a safe place to shed the masks and exhale. 

Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday, p. 71

Sanctuary

Sanctuary of place and person-

neither containing, 

neither constraining,

All embracing:

A refuge of perspective

on infinite You.

A new slant of light,

a peripheral humming

toward which I bend in bright fascination

of always and everywhere You;

of the tousled and wild diversity

that is You;

You who named each one,

who claims each one,

who loves and loves again and loves still.

You who knows each contour, texture,

and elemental specificity of creation

and calls it all good.

You, whose beckon and draw

is the metronome by which

I rest and journey.

You, the moon and sun alike—

You, whose shadow

is both cross and wing.

Sanctuary people, sanctuary spaces:

both respite and threshold

from the journey and between forgetting and remembering

that you named us Beloved;

that all you made is Blessed;

that this is enough, and we are not alone.

Kimberly M. King, RSCJ