When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either ... curved point, -- what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think! In mounting higher,
The angels would press upon us, and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence.
~ from "Sonnets From the Portuguese" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
There were many places I now know to have had for me the quality we call sacred. Those places were no more and no less than places where for some reason one longed to be, where one had certain feelings that varied from fearfulness to strange and undefined joy. The adult I now am has learned to speak and to write of something called "sacred space," but, as with so many sacred things, one possessed them as a child long before one could name them. Come to think of it, the same may be true of all elements of God's grace.
