The REAL division is between the superficial and the profound...

One of the truths I've been learning - and integrating - over the past 40 years is that Christ's invitation that we "may all be one" has multiple layers.  One has to do with evaporating the false dichotomy between the sacred and the secular.  Fr. Richard Rohr recently posted this that I find helpful:

If we just stay on the mysterium tremendum side of the spectrum, religion is defined by exclusionary purity codes that always separate things into sacred and profane. God is still distant and scary. Thus our job is to put ourselves on the side of only “sacred” things and to stay apart from worldly or material things, even though Jesus shows no such preference himself.

After the beginnings of mystical experience, one finds that what makes something secular or profane is precisely to live on the surface of anything. It’s not that the sacred is over here and the profane is over there. Everything is profane if you live on the surface of it, and everything is sacred if you go into the depths of it—even your sin. Jesus lived and loved the depths of things, as all mystics do.

So the division for the mystic is not between the secular and the sacred, but between the superficial and the profound. Karl Rahner, the German Jesuit, who was an expert at Vatican II, loved to call this “the mysticism of ordinary life.”

Sr. Joan Chittister has called this the embrace of the ordinary with the extraordinary - not as a "mountain top" experience - but a way of living, seeing and moving in our real world.  The blessing of All Saints Day, for me, is that is offers an invitation to consider the mystery of the sacred at the same time I celebrate the living presence of grace.  It is not one or the other but both at the same time.  One wise soul said "the spiritual journey... is a constant process of readying yourself... for an epiphany."  Sometimes this happens in the light, but it is equally true that our dark and confusing times can be profoundly instructive, too. "A life lived in a spirit of reverence, trust and hope - as a journey of faith - a journey of religious practice and exploration - provides us with the spiritual resources to cross over these valleys of sorrow and loss, of doubt and despair, to the other side." (Ralph Heintzman, p. 83)

Today I will visit with a friend facing the uncertainties of cancer treatment and then a loving church member who wants to increase our use of fair-trade products.  I will do administrative "stuff," play with the puppy and play a jazz gig this evening.  For the "mystic," Rohr reminds me, "the division is not between the secular and sacred but between the superficial and profound."  Lord, may it be so as this day unfolds.