Sacred vs. Religious

Something sacred doesn’t need a church, temple, or tradition to define it. It can be a deep breath, a memory you are holding, a sunrise, or a quiet story whispered at the Edge Of Life/Light. Sacredness is about a felt sense of reverence, connection, or presence. It’s whatever awakens your inner stillness. I like to think of it as being a natural wonder or something beyond ordinary understanding. It feels soft, subtle, and very personal.

Religion gathers people around common beliefs and organized ways of honoring the divine. It includes rituals, teachings, and doctrines that have been passed down through generations. In other words, religion is about the framework of how the divine is honored in a formal setting. I tend to think of religion as being man-made, something external to ourselves.

My father was a minister, but as he grew older he often said that he felt more reverence in a forest amongst the trees than he ever did in a church. He grew up on a farm with countless old oak trees where he would often sit as a child and contemplate his future. I’m certain he would love the ancient oak tree pictured here.

Sometimes, these two ideas of sacred and religious go together, but they don’t have to. Where religion offers structure, the sacred offers wonder. Religion gathers us; the sacred awakens us. One builds the temple. The other is the Light that moves through it.