John P. Martin
I have this thing about discovering sacred places and being called to honor them, usually by some meditative circumambulation or breathing. This is a practice that I assimilated from its own native environment and was not taught by anyone during my ten years of living in South Asia. I honor what is at my right side as Indians do, by using the right hand for feeding oneself and such honorable tasks, and leaving the left for self-cleansing and other less honorable tasks. (Don’t you ever pass anything to another person with your left hand! That would be a supreme insult.) So I will approach any place sacred for others, and by solidarity for me too, and will circumambulate it with my right side facing the sacred place, walking clockwise, to honor the place and the people associated with it, past and present.
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AuthorJohn Patrick Martin was born of Irish immigrant parents in New York City in 1939, partaking of their Irish culture, proudly. At age twelve his inspiration to become a foreign missionary carried him through 11 years of seminary to ordination in 1966 and a first assignment to Mexico. He dedicated himself to his priestly ministry Learn more... Archives
August 2018
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