Togetherness: sacred and profane.
The test of time is I think a good way of working out what is significant. Certain people, music and words never lose their facility to warm me. Recent birthday wishes on Facebook took me back to my days as a student in Leeds when I came across the ‘sacred and profane’ in the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim’s analysis of religion. As with most I guess, so much of my life has been spent working to keep in control of mundane, profane existence. However, interspersed in this process of getting by, have been the much rarer sacred experiences that make it all worthwhile. In this sense sacred experience is about profound closeness with special people whether through direct contact or music or words; it is a feeling of being at home. Even an atheist like me can be warmed.