Paige Dwyer-Landscapes of the Sacred (3)

A few weeks ago our class discussion was based off Lane's chapter, "Mythic Landscapes: The Ordinary as Mask of the Holy". He explores the idea that God's glory and majesty cannot be pursued directly and always remains hidden. There are "masks" of the Holy in the American landscape, both in its ritual and urban forms. The purpose of the mask is to reveal and to conceal certain aspects of the divine. The notion of the mask appropriately refers to the mystery of the divine. The mask is never able to consume the holy but yet it can never be known apart. We are meant to seek God's glory not but sight but rather by our hearts. Some try desperately to grasp heaven; therefore, inevitably look beyond everything without truly seeing it for what it is. The mask is merely a test to see if we can see the holy in and through the mask. We can apply this concept to our own personal lives. We all put on masks depending on the circumstances, people surrounding us or the setting. At school we have a mask which may be different from the one we have at home. It is not that we are pretending to be something we are not, but rather concealing some of personal identities that are not meant to be revealed. This notion has widely been used in our ancient history and is drawn out by artists and storytellers. Native Americans, Puritans and others have also used this approach to explain the world. Their environments offer some measure of correspondence to the alternative world of the sacred.