HOME ALTARS

This year, much of our worship has moved from our church buildings to our homes. Home altars have always played an important role in a Christian life of faith; they are a place of centering, a reminder that God is not trapped within the walls of a church. The Holy Spirit graces us all where we live. In the place where we are most human, where we wake up, eat, rest, wonder, and worry, home altars bear a hopeful message: we are not alone. 

When Earth & Altar put out a call for images of your home altars, you responded with beautiful photos and stories. Here are just a few of them. 

If you have a home altar you would like to share, please send an image and a message to Lifestyle & Humor Editor Ellen Singer, or post your altar on social media and tag @EarthandAltar.

@mdagle via Instagram: “We recently moved and setting up the home altar was a first and very important to me. I didn’t realize it’d be the centering space for home worship in the ways COVID has required. From simply gathering worship materials to saying a prayer while headed out the door or reading a bit of poetry it’s become *the* explicitly worshipful space in my life. That’s made me realize how important those spaces are.”

@ghostoffinch via Twitter: “Don't have a home altar bc my apartment is too cluttered, but I do keep this little homemade icon in the top drawer of my toolbox at work where I pray a shortened version of the Morning Office before work.”

@askWallace via Twitter: “Mine, featuring a large basswood crucifix I inherited from my grandfather.”

Jordan Trumble’s Holy Week home altar

@acray91 via Instagram: “My personal shrine has become the foundation of my spiritual life. It is where I start my day, where I meditate throughout the day, and where I finish the day. It has been my constant, where I encounter God even when I cannot see, hear, or feel Him.”