You are on Holy Ground right where you are

The phrase “holy ground,” is usually associated with a church, temple, mosque, or place of pilgrimages like Jerusalem, Mecca, or the river Ganges.

A Catholic might think of Lourdes in France and Fatima in Spain as holy places because Mary, the mother of Jesus, is believed to have appeared there.

Medjugorje in Yugoslavia and Guadalupe in Mexico are holy places for the same reason. Thousands of people go on pilgrimage to these places to feel the presence of God and to pray for favors from God.

The place of Jesus’ birth is called the Holy Land. Two million pilgrims visit Jerusalem every year. In 1984, I led a church group from Toronto to the Holy Land. We spent seven days there, visiting holy places associated with the life of Jesus. We went to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, to Nazareth where he grew up, to the river Jordan where he was baptized, to the Sea of Galilee where he taught and walked on the water, to the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed and to Calvary where he was crucified.

Sometimes it was so hard to feel holy in those places, because of their modern, commercial look. There were vendors everywhere selling candles and other trinkets. In the town of Cana, they sell bottles of wine, in memory of the first miracle of Jesus turning water into wine.

So, for Christians, Jerusalem is the holy ground. For Muslims, Mecca in Saudi Arabia is a holy ground. Every year millions of Muslims go to Mecca on pilgrimage. Making that pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam.

For Hindus, the River Ganges is holy. Visiting Varanasi and taking a bath in the Ganges is the lifelong dream of every Hindu seeking liberation from samsara.

Another place Christians consider holy is the church. That is why many churches begin their worship service by singing the hymn:

We are standing on holy ground. The word sanctuary comes from the Latin word sanctus, which means holy. A sanctuary means “a container for holy things.”

So, in our human thinking, holy ground is one of those designated places in special buildings, or lofty locations in other countries, away from our home.

We rarely think of our home, our office, the local mall, the casino, the park, the restaurant, the grocery store, the courthouse, the clubhouse, the country club, the country road, or the interstate highway as holy grounds.

But if you read the Bible closely, you will find that the book does not designate any special location as holy.

What makes a place holy is not the location itself, but the presence of God in that location.

Since God is present everywhere, every place should be holy. In fact, every place is holy. It is our thinking about it that makes a place holy or unholy.

Do you know where in the Bible the phrase holy ground appears for the first time? It is an amazing passage. Every time I read it I get the chills.

Of course, I don’t have to take it literally to feel the awe. It is the story of Yahweh appearing to Moses in the burning bush. The bush was burning because God was there. The ground was holy because God was present there.

Then God tells Moses not to come closer to the fire, AKA, God. This advice from God is usually interpreted as Moses (man) being unworthy of being close to God.

However, in the context of an Earth-based spirituality, it can be interpreted differently.

Instead of moving closer, God instructs Moses to just take off his shoes because the place he is standing is holy ground!

The shoes represent the obstacle between the soles of the feet and the ground beneath them.

Remove the objections and obstacles you have traditionally created in your mind about the Earth as being a dead object — the Earth being dirt, the Earth as a place of sin and temptation, the Earth being a temporary stop on your way to heaven — and feel the Earth directly with your fleshy feet, see the biodiversity around you with fresh eyes, listen to the sounds of nature enveloping you, and feel holy all the time.

(From Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)