Hagia Sophia and Sacred Places

Good Morning, God!

Wow! Is this a glorious image! Hagia Sophia built as a Byzantine Church – then turned into a mosque — and now a museum. So often churches are built on earlier holy sites. Thin Places, God? Is there something that we can’t yet measure about certain places that makes them more conducive to connecting with You? Or can continuous prayer CHANGE a site and make it more Holy? It probably works BOTH ways. Something to think about as we choose our prayer “closets”.

Back to Hagia Sophia, God. I’ve been in it and it is awe inspiring. I was just looking at this and other recent photos and it has been refurbished very nicely since my visit years ago. I’m glad that it has been and is being cared for.

It isn’t easy to care for what we CAN SEE. HOW MUCH HARDER it is to care for what we CAN’T SEE! I can’t see my inner Temple. I can’t get a printout on the state of my soul. There are No meter readings to tell me how I’m doing on energy inflow and output.

I noticed this first observing Caregivers – they gave and gave and by the end seemed almost worse off than the one they were caring for. It came to me, God, that they had BORROWED AGAINST THEIR INNER BANK. They had a huge loan to pay back! But, they had no quantifiable bill. No numbers. Not knowing – makes it hard to cut back energy outflow far enough – so that the Loan can be paid back!

You say WE CAN KNOW? That You HAVE given us DIALS so to speak. But we have been taught to ignore them?

I THINK I hear You saying that as we REST and RELAX and in my case DO CENTERING PRAYER we will recharge to the point where we can read our meters. May it be so, God. Help me become aware of my limits – help me journey toward humble,