Sacred Spaces in the Law

What is sacred about the law? I think there’s a tendency – and I’m as guilty of it as anyone – to point out the flaws in the legal system, especially in the U.S. And even to say that it’s broken, maybe irrevocably.

But what if we imagine the law as sacred? What if we recollect, maybe not in our memory but in our bones, how many generations – how many millennia – humans have been puzzling out how to govern as a sacred obligation, asking: what is just, what is fair, what is right? Not getting it "right" but still, doing our best?

And what if we see ourselves as part of that lineage, that sacred trust: imperfect, to be sure – ut still, always doing our best. It feels like there's sacredness in that – maybe even something holy, in our hallowed profession.

Transcript

Wake Up Call #375: Sacred Spaces in the law

Hi everyone, it’s Judi Cohen and this is Wake Up Call 376. It’s the day after the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, and sacred days and times for so many cultures and faiths. So I thought today I’d talk about sacredness, and particularly sacred space.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to be in a lot of sacred spaces. I grew up a block from the beach in San Francisco. When I would walk down there, as a kid, I’d feel part of something much bigger than myself. The power of the freezing cold waves crashing on the shore, the vastness of the ocean. Something unknowable. I couldn’t have named it as “sacred” at the time, but it was. 

I spent my adolescence hiking and skiing in the Sierras, and still walk and ski in those same forests today. I call them Tahoe but really they’re the ancient summer home of the Washoe nation. I feel sacredness as well – the quiet, the vastness. Sometimes I even have an imagination of the people of those first nations whose ancestors walked there.

The synagogue where I grew up, and which my family has attended for five generations and still attends, feels sacred. There’s something about walking into its sanctuaries – some sense, again, of something much larger than me and yet something to which I feel connected. 

Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Green Gulch Farm, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center,  Upaya – also places that feel sacred to me, and where I feel connected - Tassajara, for a completely different reason: because it’s where I took my daughter every summer for 16 years. The fun, the laughter, begging at the kitchen for plain tofu in those years when she wouldn’t eat anything else, the rattlesnake we saw on one hike, the BluJay who stole her sandwich. Sometimes sacred space exists for us, I think, simply because of its significance in our lives, or the memories it holds for us.

The law is also sacred space to me. I feel like the law is something that holds society in place, for better and worse. It’s been carved out of years, decades, centuries, millennia, really, of trial and error. Can we say this? Will this work to protect people? Is this fair? Is this right? Is this just? Of course things don’t working from many perspectives, for communities of color and other communities impacted by the inherent injustices of the law. But still, there is a sacred trust to the law, even if our whole career is in opposition to the laws as they’re written, or imposed. Like something we could propose, in an argument or document, or that a judge could apply, has come down through the ages. 

Likewise the physical spaces of the law have often felt sacred to me. Courtrooms feel sacred. Justice isn’t necessarily done, but when it is, when the parties are honest, civil, in good faith; when the judge is fair, for me there’s little that’s more sacred. Equally sacred, but not more. I even feel this way sometimes when I visit law firms for trainings: there’s something sacred about spaces in which people who are smart and dedicated and persistent, are struggling in the muck and the mud, as the poet Marge Pearcy says, to somehow get something done well, and fairly, applying concepts that are sometimes completely new, and sometimes as ancient as humanity.

But when I think about these physical spaces I’m naming, I also wonder how much the spaces themselves, have to do with sacredness. Or if instead, we each bring sacredness into each moment – or have the potential to do that. If, instead of sacredness being some place, out there, into which we enter, or that we tap into, sacredness is actually internal, and exists because of the ways we pay attention, or attend.

In that case, the way we attend to nature, to our places of worship, to the ancient places where humans have worshiped from time immemorial; and the law, even our homes, even the small spaces where maybe we sit and meditate each day – maybe these places don’t have inherent sacredness so much as that our attention, or maybe our faith, makes them sacred. 

A couple of weeks ago I had to be in the hospital for a few days, I mentioned, just to get some antibiotics. Some of you know, I’m offering a new Essential Mindfulness for Lawyers program right now. And for the December dates, they were all on Mondays. And at first they wanted me to stay in the hospital until Wednesday. 

I was really debating: do I cancel that Monday program? Do I see if there’s a room at the hospital where they’ll let me run it? What if I get to go home on Monday – will I feel well enough to offer it?

They did let me go home, and it was pretty early on the Monday. I was home, rested, showered, and ready to go by the 5pm time. So I thought, why not?

I’ve always felt that the dharma – the teachings of mindfulness, were sacred. They spoke to me the very first time I ever heard them, and have resonated every since. I know this is true for many of us – not all, but many. And that Monday, as I was teaching this program, I realized, this is just the creation of sacred space – that’s all it is. Creating a space where we can sit together, like we do here!, and practice, and explore the teachings. It felt very healing, not a burden and not at all beyond my strength or resilience level even though I’d been medically (and lovingly) poked and prodded for several days just finishing that morning. 

This brings me to my final inquiry, which is about how much we work as lawyers, as law professors. We have this huge conversation going about how it’s too much. And it probably is. 

But I guess my inquiry is, what if the spaces where we work, and the work we do, is sacred? What if all that energy is not always, at least, a kind of overachieving, fear-based, driven, kind of energy? What if instead, it’s fueled by love, and reverence, and even faith? Because if I’m looking at all the sacred spaces I’ve named, it seems that’s the common denominator: they’re spaces, and moments, that are fill with love, reverence, and faith. 

Let’s sit.

What is sacred or holy about the law?

I think there’s a tendency – and I’m as guilty of it as the next person – 

to point out the flaws in the legal system, especially in the U.S.,

and even to say that it’s broken,  maybe irrevocably.

But what if we imagine the law as sacred?

What if we recollect, maybe not in our memory but in our bones,

how many generations – how many millennia –

humans have been puzzling out how to govern as a sacred obligation, asking:

what is just, what is fair, what is right?

And what if we remember to see ourselves as part of that lineage, 

that sacred trust – imperfect, to be sure – but still, always, always, doing our best.

Seems to me there is sacredness in that – maybe even something holy in that.

[Play the John Lennon Imagine video at the end of the Paramitas – whenever that is! (It’s bookmarked under Music.)]