Sacred and Centered: Where we all want to be

My mother is catholic and would always pray before going to sleep. She always wore a rosary around her neck claiming that it would protect her. But when she would take me to church every Sunday evening she would always tell me to behave myself because church is a place of god. It is a place where god’s presence is very strong. Why places need to be sacred has never crossed my thoughts until now. In his article, Eliade goes into detail about how a religious man experiences space differently than a nonreligious man. A religious man will see the sacred space of a church, mountain, or a temple differently from its surrounding land. I found Eliade’s descriptions of how religion is tied to space very intriguing. Why is it that religious people, instead of carrying some sort of religious piece with them, need to conquer the land around them in the name of a god? People have always visited to sacred spaces for many reasons. Either to feel safe, to pray for forgiveness, to solve a dilemma, or to seek answers to questions they could not answer. However for many centuries people from different societies have perceived different places as holier than others.
In addition to the sacredness of space Eliade continues to discuss a fascination that many traditional societies have with the center of the world. A number of cultures consider their holy sites to be situated at the center of the world and that in the center of the world lays the link between heaven and earth. To a religious man living as closest as he can to the center of the world means he is as closest as he can be to god. The center of the world also symbolizes communication with the heavenly world. To a religious man living within the center of “his world” means he is organized, complete, and away from chaos.