Recipes for a Sacred Life: True Stories and a Few Miracles Rivvy Neshama (best short books to read .TXT) 📖

and I read the book avidly and talked in patterns, hoping our house would be harmonious, that it would truly be a home.

One of the patterns the authors encourage is the zen view, which is fleeting and restrained. Not for them those picture windows looking out at showy mountains that you stare at all day long. They prefer that you follow a path from your door and maybe enter a courtyard, where, through a narrow slit in a stone wall, you catch a distant sighting of those same mountains. The zen view is something you glimpse in passing and that comes as a surprise—to wake you to the moment and a flash of hidden truth.

So today I enjoyed a zen view of our midsummer garden. And when I walked along the driveway, I found another zen view in our meadow: a sleeping fawn half-hidden by tall grasses. My spirit lifted as I remembered the spaciousness of life.

Back in the house, though, my thoughts soon returned to Sarah in the hospital and Mom’s lump and mine, and all my fears revived. I could feel them in my stomach, churning away.

Then something happened that made everything shift. The doorbell rang and it was Marianne, a fellow member of our Friends of Darfur group. She had come to pick up yard signs we’d recently made. I always liked Marianne. Her down-to-earth manner and dry humor helped our group stay real. On this hot day, I offered her a cool drink, and when she asked me how I was, I answered “Scared,” as my eyes began to tear.

“What’s happening?” Marianne asked kindly, and I told her—about Sarah, Mom, and me. I didn’t know her well, but maybe that’s why I opened up. And when I stopped talking, she opened up too.

Years ago, she said, she was in Quebec when her heart stopped. They rushed her to a hospital for emergency surgery. Then she went into a coma and they flew her to Los Angeles, not really believing she would live. But all the time she was conscious, she found herself saying a prayer from her childhood, the Hebrew prayer Sh’ma: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

“It was so strange,” Marianne said in her matter-of-fact way. “I was never religious before then.” She looked at me and shrugged. “I don’t know what made me say that prayer. But I know that’s what saved me.”

Now, I can’t say my dark feelings never returned that day. Yet I knew a sense of grace would also return, indirectly and when least expected. Like the first blooms on the Rose of Sharon, or the sleeping fawn, or Marianne. It’s the way our world works, the way it was made, with a zen view waiting to show us the light.

A SACRED SPACE

The first time I saw a “sacred space” in someone’s home was in the 1970s. I was visiting my friend Mary in Cambridge and she said I could stay over—if I didn’t mind sleeping on a mattress on the floor of her “meditation room.”

“No problem,” I said. For those were the days when I attended retreats at Zen monasteries, where the beds were so hard I was almost grateful when the bells woke us up to chant before dawn.

No bells at Mary’s. Just a room that looked restful: soft white rug, the noted mattress, and some candles. The emptiness of the room was soothing. It invited me to empty my mind.

But having a sacred space in your home doesn’t require a whole room; it can evolve in a simple space. A bookcase, window, or corner can easily become the site for creating altars or tableaux of meaningful objects and images, ones that resonate for you.

Larger spaces can become places to pray, meditate, or rest in, if they offer privacy and quiet at least some of the time. My sacred space is in an alcove off our bedroom. I often pass it without looking. But once I sit down on the prayer rug, light the candles, and begin to meditate or do yoga, I forget the larger room behind me and I’m back in my sacred space. I guess it’s what I bring to it—my intention and practice—that makes it feel sacred. And by creating an inspiring environment, my intention and practice have deepened.

Some people may already have a sacred space in their home but not think of it that way. For my mother, it was her kitchen table, next to a wall of family photos. “When things are troubling me,” Mom said, “I go there and sit. Then I have a cup of coffee and think things through until I’m feeling better. I never thought of it as my sacred space, but I guess it is.”

Other people find their sacred space outdoors: a bench with a view in their garden or a hidden grove in a nearby park.

And some people, like our neighbor Brian Spielmann, have enough space to create a dedicated shrine room with Buddhist hangings—an uptown version of Mary’s meditation room-cum-mattress. Brian goes there to meditate or make offerings, and he goes there every day.

“You want the whole world to be your sacred space,” he says. “And it is. But we forget, so our sacred space is a reminder.”

A SACRED HOME

John and I wanted our whole home to feel sacred, so we nailed on our doorpost a mezuzah: an encased parchment scroll inscribed with prayers from the Torah. It’s a Jewish tradition to protect families and to remind us, as we come and go, of the sacredness of world and home.

(“Sacred, schmacred!” my dad mutters in heaven. “If you’re Jewish, you hang a mezuzah. End of story!”) Right.

Another way we made our home feel sacred was through its design. We built arches between rooms, because we liked how they looked and felt. I later learned that in some eastern countries, walking under an arch is considered a mystical passage. We also put in skylights, which let in sunbeams and moonlight