Hello, and welcome to my blog, Reforming Rob! I'm glad you're here, and offer you my sincerest thanks for spending time with me today. In my last post, I shared my experience and passion around running away from all things tobacco and nicotine related. Today, I'd like to share some of the places I visit, sacred places, where all components of my well being are positively influenced, mind, body, and spirit.
Where Are Sacred Places?
Where are you sacred places? What ARE sacred places? The short answer to that question is as individual and unique as each one of us. Your life's experiences are going to generate for you those places in which you feel reverence, and those places may be many or few. The place I hold as the most sacred on earth may have no influence on you and vice versa. And that is completely okay! Every individual may choose for themselves their special places, some from religious beliefs, others from meaningful historical events, these for the special memories, and those for unique beauty or power.
Seek Out Your Sacred Places
Do your thoughts instantaneously fall to a specific spot when I ask you where your sacred place is? Do you have to think about it? Or does a torrent of places you cherish come avalanching through your mind such that you can't name them all? Either way you answered is okay for today. My challenge to myself and to each of you is to create the opportunity to reflect and recognize these unique to you areas, and then to mindfully include a portion of your 168 hour week in one or more of them. Rob, why in the world would you recommend adding to my already too busy weekly schedule??? Great question!
One giant reason I schedule time weekly in sacred places is because of my already too busy weekly schedule! Experience has taught me too often that my mental and spiritual health is at risk when I over-schedule or over-whelm. Purposefully setting aside time to be in my sacred places every week means I'm going to have the best chance of connecting with the biggest medicine for healing and well being of which I've found to date. I'm not talking about magic or miraculous healings, although I believe those do occur. I'm referring to specific self-reliance practices while in our sacred places that will heal and strengthen us.
Connection to God
Probably the most common and rightfully prioritized reason for visiting sacred places is to make a connection with God our Eternal Father. We are cabable of connecting to Him no matter where we are in the world. In fact, one of my favorite scriptures is from The Book of Mormon.
Alma 34:26, "But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, in your secret places, and in your wilderness."
There is, however, in my experience, a deeper and more meaningful connection when I've made the extra effort to be physically somewhere where that enhances my gratitude and reverence. Sacred places help me to shed my mortal worries, desires, hurriedness, impatience, distractedness, stress, and anxiety, and just pour out my heart to my Father. Then listen carefully for His quiet answers and feel His love.
1 Kings 19:11-12 "... And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice."
My favorite sacred place nearby in which I visit almost weekly is the Gilbert Arizona Temple. Inside the temple, members of my church make special covenants with God that can only be made in a Temple. Then we're able to serve as proxy for our family and friends who have gone before us who may have died without having had the chance to make the covenants on their own. Adding the capacity to serve other people while in that beautiful and quiet space inspires an even deeper connection to God, and without fail I leave the Temple in peace each time I've served there. Sometimes I visit the Temple and just spend time on the grounds outside. Anyone is welcome to visit the Temple and walk the grounds, sit and meditate, and feel the holiness prevelant there.
Reverence and Recognition
A love for the freedom I enjoy in my country, combined with my love of history and biography, has impressed deeply in my heart and mind an appreciation and love for all those who have served and even given their lives in the great purpose of ensuring freedom and prosperity that I now enjoy today. I like to visit two sacred places within just a few minutes of my home that help me feel the appropriate reverence and sharpen my gratitude. "Veterans Memorial: Field of Honor" is just a mile from my house. It is a place that pays tribute to past, present, and future veterans from my neighborhood. The field creates an illustration of the United States flag. Another sacred place just a few minutes away is the "Afghanistan-Iraq War Memorial" at San Tan Mountain Park. Under a Star Spangled Banner waving in the desert breeze is a memorial with aluminum plates identifying the name, rank, and age of every member of the United States armed forces from Arizona who died in that near 20 year war. I call these places sacred from the deep reverence and reflection they inspire in me, and for the great gratitude I have in my heart for these men and women and their families who sacrificed.
Gratitude and the Natural World
I probably do not have a blog post in which I've failed to mention my love for the beautiful natural places that are found in deep diversity all over my great state! On my list of sacred places are many of these mountains, trails, and open desert areas with vistas over which one can see hundreds of miles. In the high mountains near Flagstaff one can peer into the sky at night and have trouble finding a blank spot anywhere in it! Deep appreciation and gratitude for my knowledge of my Father as the Creator of all this beauty make each of these places sacred to me. In recognizing His hand, of seeing how in such minute detail each plant, animal, rock, or stream has its assigned place and purpose, helps me comprehend just a little better that the same is true for me! I am one of His creations, and He has a design and purpose for me! Sacred places heal and strengthen our well being.
Find your sacred places. Spend time in them. Connect. Reflect. Study. Recognize. Be grateful. Rejoice!!!
Until next time...
PEACE!
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