Sarah Ritter Landscapes of the Sacred #1

In Landscapes of the Sacred, Lane discusses how the ordinary is a mask of the sacred. When I first read this section I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and I thought he was making no sense but the more I read it the more it started to make sense.  Lane describes how like a mask, the ordinary simultaneously hides and reveals certain aspects of the holy.  Ordinary actions and places give you a glimpse of the holy which is behind it much like the eye and nose hole of an actual mask yet still reveals much of it as well.  In addition, the ordinary is actually a simplification of the holy which makes itself obvious in everyday things but because these things are so abundant and we see them all the time and they are constantly there, it actually hides the holy because we stop noticing it and end up not seeing the holy’s presence at all.  In other words the ordinary identifies and displays the character of the Holy but hides the actual identity just as a mask shows the character of the person behind it but hides their actual identity.