{"id":49109,"date":"2026-06-12T01:38:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T08:38:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=49109"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T21:10:09","slug":"reclaiming-sacredness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2026\/06\/12\/reclaiming-sacredness\/","title":{"rendered":"Reclaiming sacredness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEverything changes when we are rooted in our sacredness,\u201d writes Jeff Golden in his self-published, award-winning book Reclaiming the Sacred: Healing Our Relationships with Ourselves and the World <\/i>(2022).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>\u201cWhen we can feel that we are an essential part of the universe, that we are the breath of the divine,\u201d Golden believes that we can transform what he describes as our \u201cmorally, spiritually, ecologically, and, soon enough, economically\u201d bankrupt system into \u201can entirely different way of living and being, rooted in the wonder, reverence, and connection that have long nourished our ancestors, yet unique to our times and needs and opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reclaiming the Sacred<\/i> is a densely packed book, almost overflowing with facts and ideas (there are 38 pages of endnotes). Golden includes narratives, data, poems, blessings and philosophy from countless thinkers and doers. He repeats key themes \u2013 a necessary action given the amount of information he imparts. He has some punchy and creative, if long, chapter headings (\u201cMore Sleep, Less Cow: Physical Health and Happiness\u201d and \u201cRetail Therapy: Taking Our Insecurities and Fears to the Mall,\u201d for example) and writes conversationally.<\/p>\n

His thesis is that materialism not only can\u2019t make us happy but prevents us from realizing our own inherent wealth, and that of the world, which we are destroying, along with many of its inhabitants. \u201cBetween 40 and 80% of all species may not survive to see the next century,\u201d he writes. \u201cWe are one of those species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden argues against the idea that we come into the world alone and die alone; in fact, he contends that we are never alone, so intertwined we are with the world, its elements, its creatures, its plants, its particles. He sees \u201creligion as the experience of profound belonging,\u201d rather than as \u201ca set of doctrines that must be believed and obeyed.\u201d He hopes the book will support readers on their journey to reclaim themselves and the world as sacred.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Proceeds from the sale of Reclaiming the Sacred<\/i> go to nonprofits doing work related to its themes. For more information about that and about the courses and workshops Golden teaches, go to reclaimingthesacred.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEverything changes when we are rooted in our sacredness,\u201d writes Jeff Golden in his self-published, award-winning book Reclaiming the Sacred: Healing Our Relationships with Ourselves and the World (2022).\u00a0 \u201cWhen we can feel that we are an essential part of the universe, that we are the breath of the divine,\u201d Golden believes that we can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[23113,2845,218,24903,5806,5701],"class_list":["post-49109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-capitalism","tag-environment","tag-judaism","tag-reclaiming-the-sacred","tag-religion","tag-spirituality"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}