Welcome to the Sanctuary of the Holy Others

An introduction to a project that's long overdue

Sanctuary of the Holy Others has been a dream of mine for years.  It’s a place where those who feel they are on the margins of society and the church can find refuge and safety to talk about their faith life.

What’s in a name?

Like all new things, it needed a name.  The name came to me over several years in snippets of inspiration, each piece starting from the tight tether of my family.

My dad has never professed to be a Christian.  Even now, married to my mom who is an Episcopal priest, he says, “It makes sense to some people, just not me.” When I went to college, I had Evangelical Christian friends who worried about my dad.  “Doesn’t it scare you that he won’t go to heaven?”  It didn’t.  

On August 8, 1993 my dad took his last swig of alcohol, the dregs of a liter-size vodka in a taxi outside of the Houston Airport.  I was 9 years old. My mom had left him four months before. My sister and I were living with her in my aunt’s basement in Minnesota.

About five years after getting sober, my dad’s entire manner began to shift into a peculiar, patient gentleness. He was daily attending 12-step meetings, committed to being of service to other ‘drunks’ (his words, not mine) whether picking them up off the street or giving them a ride to a meeting.  As a dad, he lived a life of apology to my sister and I, serving us with humility by being the volleyball team dad and our main laundry guy.  By the time I got to college, he had been sober for a decade, and my parents had rebuilt their marriage.  When my evangelical friends worried for his salvation, I was pretty sure God and my dad had their own deal that I didn’t need to be privy to.

Today, as my dad declines due to Alzheimer’s, I am trying to hold onto the parts of him that are slipping away.  One is his love of music.  In college, he was the lead singer of a rock band. He had long wavy hair and played the tambourine on his thigh so forcefully that he gave himself bruises.  The band’s name?  The Holy Others.

My dad in 1972, after he’d given up his long-haired rock star dreams and went to graduate school instead.

The Sanctuary of the Holy Others is a nod to my dad, as well as a nod to my very patient husband whose last name I took – Sancken – a close syllabic facsimile of Sanctuary.

Who is a Holy Other?

A Holy Other is anyone curious about the Christian faith, but who feels on the outside of typical American Christian society. As my children age, a Sanctuary of Holy Others is the spiritual home I wish for them. Both of my children are different.  They have never felt at home in church communities, despite my best advocacy on their behalf.  My oldest daughter is autistic, and my youngest child is transgender.  I yearn for them to know a God who loves them just as they are, and to find fellowship with other faith-curious weirdos like them.

If you yearn for this too, join us. C’mon in to the Sanctuary of the Holy Others. We’re part 12-step group, part-liturgical worship, part-storytelling around the fire. While we aim for sharing the good, true and beautiful, I can’t promise there won’t be some heresy thrown in there as well.  I’m not a theologian. I’m just a person who more often than not feels on the outside, looking in.  Here on the edges of acceptable society, I hope to find other curious, humble, and honest people looking for what it means to be faithful.