Sacred space

Women's magazines say today's harried female can find a measure of peace if she creates a place, a "sacred space," where she can tune out the world and quiet her mind.

Uh-huh.

I live in a multi-generational household, a trendy term that means we share our formerly empty-nesters' home with one of our grown kids, who moved home with a partner and three kids in tow last year. The house is, um, a bit crowded.

So I was thinking that the creation of my own "sacred space" is, at least for now, just a pipe dream.

Then Mom called.

Her rosary case had gone missing again -- this happens about once a month -- but, happily, it turned up when one of the aides at her nursing home changed her bed. It brought to mind the "sacred space" Mom carved out for herself back when my four brothers and I were kids.

She didn't call it that, of course, but that's what it was: a darkened corner of our dining room where she would sit beside the big console radio for 15 minutes every evening and say the rosary along with a broadcast that came, if memory serves, from the Roman Catholic cathedral in Cleveland.

We kids understood that you did not disturb Mom during those precious minutes she set aside for herself each day. I realize now that she had created a sacred space right in the middle of our crazy, busy household. She didn't need to clear a room or even part of a room. She simply turned a dining-room chair toward the radio, turned off the lights in that room and found a measure of peace.

If she can do it, maybe I can too.

Now if I could just find my rosary case ...