Cairn-Space. N. Thomas Johnson-Medland
foods are they
which bring the
heavens down
to the earth
and raise our dirt
to the cosmos
above.
With these gifts –
given and returned –
we become terrestrial angels
and celestial men.
One space
one time
for all places
and through all time.
***
As humans we are always processing the world around us. We bring it inside of us, encounter it, wrestle with it, become transformed by it, and live our lives based on these adjustments—these transformations. Our lives are changed by these meetings.
In essence, everything in our lives is a cairn of meaning. Everything around us means something to us. Everything around us informs us and moves us into some sort of transformative encounter.
We store all that we encounter in a consciousness that eludes us. The mystery of what things mean is inside of us. Because of that the mystic heart knows that everything exists on the edge of becoming a sacrament. It all rides on the decision of the will.
The meaning of things in our lives changes the world around us as we affect the rest of life with the identity we become in the process. People help us to become new people. Places enable us to adjust how we live. Objects transform our present into future. Old things pass away and all things become new. These meetings are themselves markers of who we have been over time: elements of our own presence.
We leave markers everywhere. We tend to remember those that are in the places we have had our wrestling-encounters. These larger events in life are easier to remember. We save the memories of places where something special and memorable occurred. Some of these markers are left in the outside world as mementos, cairns, gardens, chapels, and grottoes. Some of these markers are left in the inside world as impressions, feelings, thoughts, dreams, and hopes; pieces of our becoming. Whether they are outside or inside, these markers are our cairns. That they may be outside or inside moves them into sacramental reality.
“How Great Thou Art” is a cairn for me. Inside the meaning of this marker along the way is a heart and mind filled with wonder, connections, and grandparents. I loved this hymn—and still do—because of its importance to my maternal grandmother. Mom-mom loved that hymn. Mom-mom loved that hymn because her mother loved that hymn. I sang it with abandon in her memory at church each Sunday it was selected, and again at my grandfather’s funeral. It became a family cairn over time.
Mom-mom and Pop-pop became real to me as I sang each note. They became real in my heart. Every time I sang it, a neural pathway was wired from my insides to God and to my grandparents. When I sang it, I became one with God, with myself, and with my grandparents. It was a hyperlink to multiple sites. It became a communication of great import. I stored this memory inside for future visits of and to the hymn.
The time we have shared together on this earth-space is littered with markers of our lives together. My sons are cairns for me. I can look at them and remember the various stages and “people they have been.” When they were little, they said things I will carry inside for the rest of my life. Things that made me laugh, or cry. Their concerts, their plays and pageants, the camping trips and vacations; these things mark time for me.
Their presence in my life helps me to rebuild who I am on a daily basis. Sometimes a simple smile can take me back over years and places. All of our cairns have the potential of doing this. Everything can be a trip wire for being snared in meaning.
***
All of the places we build and set aside for prayer and remembrance are simply the “subconscious mind” making signposts leading us inside. All that we have been in the past leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for us to find along the way. We stumble on the crumbs, pick them up, and remember the value and meaning we were a part of at some other time. We follow this communion trail into our own selves. What we find is a consciousness littered with moments and meaning; a matrix of all that has gone on before. We find a space within that provides us with the opportunity to sit and taste the morsels we have collected along the way.
If we look at all of the things we hold as dear, we will see our cairns; we will see the trail of breadcrumbs that leads us in. If we notice all of the places we have been transformed and changed, we will see our cairns. If we recognize the high points and low points of our lives, we will see our cairns. If we remember all of those people who have reached out to us throughout our lives, we will see our cairns. If we note each book, thought, notion, and idea we have fleetingly held, we will see our cairns. If we were able to unpack the events of each breath of our lives, we would see our cairns—all of them.
If we follow the lead and meaning these cairns provide, we are blessed to be able to find an interior room—a space inside ourselves—in which to settle down and remember. We can trace the memory into a quiet chamber of the heart and hold it in our grasp there; gently realizing its depth. If we cannot immediately find a shelter within, these cairns require us to search hard until we find one, or to build one ourselves.
And so, we find or build a chapel, a cell, or a cave in our heart where we may sit and unpack the meaning of our lives. We build on this space, to sit and sup with the Divine One who is the ground of all being. We commune with God and all that we have been and all that we have become. We bring into the tabernacle of our heart the fullness of our mind and soul.
We have this place in us—whether we recognize it or not—that is our TRUE SELF; a place where we hold all of the strings of the awareness of our life. It is the place where all things come together. It is the place where God dwells. We retreat there in time of trouble and change. This place is called the heart. This cairn-space is a dot in eternity; a spiritual atom within which all creation is born and housed.
***
If we can recognize this process of going within and find this place that is within, we will be on the right road. We will be living up to our full potential as sacramental beings. We will have struck out on the most sacred journey—the journey to the heart—and we will have found there not only a home, but our true selves. In fact, the heart is the greatest cairn there is. It is the cairn established by God, to mark off our experiences of His Presence. The heart is the Holy of Holies.
This is just another way of looking at what is inside of us. The Fathers of the Church called this the Royal Road. The Royal Road always leads us to the place where God dwells in us. It leads us to the heart.
There is a longing deep within us; a yearning for this heart space within which we find oneness. It is the place we find our core identity. We await opportunities to settle into our being and feel a unity with God and all that is a part of His creation. Every experience of worship is a longing that we might discover the Presence of God in our lives and yield to that Presence. We perform acts of kindness with the hopes of catching a glimpse of God in the beggars and sick. We look for signs outside of what we sense inside.
Our eyes dart this way and that looking for a place we can call our own, a place of meeting. We want to meet the Divine One and do it again and again. We search desperately for cairns and markers that will call us into this place. We even try to buy and consume things that we believe will help us achieve this goal of “inwardness.” This place exists already. We buy books that give us clues. We attend workshops that reveal the way. We must simply interpret the cairns along the way as signs that point in.
Setting out and finding God-spaces, meeting-places, and realms of connection is really what “the path” is all about. Some people recognize that this quest for unity and relationship is at the root of everything we do—NOW. Finding God drives us to search all the more. The markers on the outside help move us to the inside, and there we wait for Godot. And, although this space exists in all of us, it