The Power of Place

MEDITATION

THERE is an old legend which is attached to the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector, whose life was transformed when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree and invited himself to dinner at his house.

The legend tells that in later life Zacchaeus would rise early every morning, carry a bucket of water and a rake to the sycamore tree and carefully tidy and water its roots.

One day his wife, wondering why he rose so early each day, followed him and watched from a distance. Then she asked him the reason for his strange custom. Zacchaeus is said to have replied: “I come here every day because this is where I first found Christ.”

The story may be somewhat farfetched, but for me it highlights the importance of place and in particular the importance of the places that we associate with our life of faith. It is well documented that memories are sparked when we revisit the signficant places where our lives were shaped and formed or where life changing events occurred.

Drive past your old primary school, walk where you walked with your first love, stand where you stood when you had to absorb some shattering piece of news and the memories can be as real as if these things were happening all over again.

The power of place can never be underestimated.

Translate this into your experience of what we might call “holy places” – the church building where generations of your family have been baptised, coni rmed, married and laid to rest and you will understand that when one of these places comes to the end of its useful life people can feel such a deep sense of loss. Compare this with the experience we have when we visit an ancient place of worship – the ruins of an Abbey, the towering vaults of a Cathedral or the intimate space of a country Kirk. There the memory might not be a private one, but instead one which derives from the sense of history which such places invoke and we are moved to feel a sense of “otherness”. For many people the power of such holy places helps to drive their faith.

Last year reports of a survey carried out by ComRes (a reputable Market Research company) suggested that many more young people than any of us imagined were active followers of Jesus. The findings, no doubt disputed, referenced in the Catholic Herald, the Church Times and The Telegraph online, point to the power of place as a considerable force in the world of religious experience.

The research was commissioned by the Christian youth organisation Hope Revolution Partnership. The findings were double checked before they were released because the signficant statistic was the claim that one in six young people identify themselves as Christian and that one of the most inl uencing factors in their finding faith was their time spent visiting church buildings. According to the research the inl uence of a church building was more signficant than attending a youth group, going to a wedding, or speaking to other Christians about their faith.

For many people the power of such holy places helps to drive their faith.

While the jury may be out on this piece of research I, nonetheless, understand something of the way in which people of all ages might be inspired by holy places and spaces. When Solomon completed work on the first Temple he saw it as being a place for God to be present on earth, but while he fully realised that heaven itself could not contain God, much less the house he had built, it was at least a place, if properly used, where the people could be brought nearer to God and God brought nearer to the people.

As a way of drawing nearer to God – add holy places to your list of holy silence, holy listening and holy word.

This article appears in the April 2018 Issue of Life and Work

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