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Sarah's avatar

Thank you asking about "cool church" vibes in the interview. When the concept of Sacred Design Lab first came up that's where my mind went.

The interview also reminded me of the book "The Art of Gathering" by Priya Parker. Similar topics around what it means to gather and hold ritual. Parker's book goes more into specifics about how to design a meaningful gathering, but she does mentions similar touchstones like The Dinner Party.

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Chris Danforth's avatar

It's such a tangled knot, figuring what we ache for because it is a communal experience, but simultaneously resent because that communal experience occurred in a place that can be violent like a church.

I was in Austria a few years back, eating dinner in a tavern set atop a hillside vineyard. The person who took us there was an ex-pat, and a professor of history at a local university. He had arranged for his tavern choir to perform for us and somewhere around the fourth glass of wine, they sang. It was perfect, and a few times a year I wish that there were more safe, non-religious options in our (non-pandemic ravaged) country for people to participate in these soul-opening communal endeavors.

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