Chad Adams - Landscapes of the Sacred: Reflection #3

“But if you have proposed to someone you love in a particular McDonald’s restaurant or experienced a life-changing conversation in another, that topos suddenly becomes a chora, intimately a part of your life.” - I think this is completely true about sacred places and Lane later in the chapter says that the sacred places have stories and history with them. Although I think what Lane describes above in the sentence about proposing in a McDonalds makes a place special, which I think is different from sacred. A special place brings back meaningful memories to a single person, but I believe a sacred place has brought back meaningful memories to many people over many years. I think that’s what makes these places so sacred. When you go to a place that you hear is sacred, you expect that many people have experienced something spectacular at this exact place, and in turn you almost expect to experience something spectacular yourself. When you are looking for something spectacular to happen, then usually it does, even though it may be the most unspectacular thing and maybe just a random string of events. Most sacred places just don’t turn sacred in a day and don’t automatically become a tourist attraction where people come to reach their inner selves or speak with god. It’s because of all the history. I think there’s a sense that people get when they visit sacred places. They get the sense that millions of people have came to visit this exact place looking for something. It may not be the same thing, but they all came to this exact place in the world to find something. It may be to find themselves, to find communication with a higher being, or to simply just find beauty and tranquility. Knowing this puts a history and a special feeling of where you are at that moment. Knowing that this place may have changed thousands of lives just by being this sacred place makes it special.