Altars – Divine Ready

November 14, 2024

Alterations #3

I was watching and I saw when all those perfect gifts you brought, beautifully wrapped too, were torn open in an instant and tossed aside in a heap with all the brightly colored paper, bows, and ribbons left to be trampled on then carried away with the trash. How devastating. You must have felt shocked, hurt, angry, and very sad. All those hours getting ready for this party, the months of hope and anticipation of the big reveal almost, almost as though waiting for a new baby you had already been calling Joy, and all of it burnt out quicker than a shooting star, as if you didn’t matter.

Your precious gifts were salvaged, gathered and placed carefully on the altar atop fair linen embroidered with silver threads of love and compassion. Your glorious righteous anger, a glowing white-hot orb shooting out rays of piercing gold, placed in the center. The pall-covered chalice, not quite empty, sits to the right waiting to be filled to overflowing again with fizzy hope. A paten of hosts made of wheat and water, your strength and indomitable spirit baked in, rests on a hemp corporal. Tapers with fresh wicks wait to be sparked by the inextinguishable flame within you. These offerings of yours are worshipped and adored here, safe and ready for you to take back when you are rested from this trial.

You will shine again. The gash in your heart will be washed with strips of the purest cotton dipped in healing waters. The wound will heal, leaving a jagged scar. The candles will be lit, and you will sip with reverence from the chalice moistening parched lips. You will dissolve a dry host in your mouth renewing a steadfast spirit. You will take that glowing orb back out into the world and beam its protective light wherever it is needed.

You are a survivor. You always were, you always will be. Your priceless gifts are worth more than all the pretend riches in the world. We need you. We always did, we always will.

October 1, 2023

Altarations #2

During a break in our meeting at San Alfonso Retreat House, a friend and I took a walk on the near-empty beach. On our return, we made our way to the retreat center off-path, walking towards a towering crucifix, its back facing the sea, in front of it a square stone altar covered in offerings from the ocean.

I love altars. They are the draw for me. Ocean as backdrop? I am worshipping. I placed my own recent find, a smooth white stone, among the treasures.

My friend held up two stones plucked from the altar. “Look, they’re stuck together.”

Had someone glued two beach stones together? Why? Should we be touching, moving, picking up things from the altar? Wasn’t that prayer tampering? Interfering with potential blessings? What is sacred, if not an altar?

“Everyone picks up things and moves them on this altar,” she assured me.

I looked protectively at my stone.

The first altars were rocks, trees, springs, sometimes a mound of earth, believed to be inhabited by gods or spirits. Offerings were laid on or near them in exchange for hoped-for divine intervention. Later, altars were bloodied by sacrifices, animal and human. Altars can metaphorically exalt people; they worship at the altar of (insert name of writer, actor, athlete, magnificent person). They can be plain and simple or adorned and elaborate, fixed or moveable, visible or secretly internal and always accessible.

The next day, I returned to the altar by the sea and somehow managed to find my offering among the rearranged stones, now formed in the shape of a cross. I took it back feeling both guilty and righteous.

That stone will find its way to a windowsill or shelf at home or in my office with other rocks, crystals, feathers and whatnot, personal mini altars I seem forever in need of creating, having nearby. Altars, whether grand or small, signal a pause, a moment of grace, a sliver of renewal and transformation, a place to bring offerings, to wonder, wish, and yes, worship, if it suits. Before I left San Alfonso’s, I placed a different stone on the altar, one just as difficult to part with, a small act in a graced never-ending ritual of giving and receiving. There is no tampering with that.

January 12, 2019

Altarations for the New Year

Unknown Take all the secrets and shame from the vault and lay them open on the altar of compassion where they will be burned with sage and sweet grass, then rinsed away with a tincture of holy water, lavender and mercy.

Lie down on the granite altar of pain and offer your sorrow as sacrifice. Let the flying buttresses and the bowl of the apse catch your soul’s keening. Be soothed by the cool stone beneath you. Hold steadfast that a light heart will beat again.

Kneel before the altar of humbleness and receive the host of gratitude and forgiveness on your tongue. Sip bittersweet from the chalice of chance and experience. Rise up.

Walk down the aisle toward the altar of the flowing river draped in the morning sunlight. Slip on the ring of promise, and vow to start each day with a sacrament of beauty.

Dance on the refracted colored light on the floor of the nave before the altar of joy to a jubilant chorus raising the cathedral roof singing of your goodness.

Gaze up to the hawk’s shrill cry, follow flashes of cardinal and streaks of blue jay, glides of tawny sparrow to where they adorn the shrines of mighty oak and pine, and woodpeckers tap their praise.

Gild the altar of life with fragrant flowers, the finest threads and most vivid colors. In exaltation, summon forth courage and creativity; bless the arts and music. Welcome with open arms all who are bold enough to risk.

Dip inspiration into the baptismal font of hope where doubt knows no name. Process the ashes of fear out the holy door and down the avenue in a caisson drawn by white horses.

Worship in awe-filled silence in the sanctuary of your understanding. Glorify that which you feel to be holy. Come often to be centered and fed. Shout Hallelujah! Chant om, shanti, shanti, shanti. Namaste. Amen.