Why We Split the World Into Sacred vs. Secular (And What We Lose)

How binary thinking cuts us off from integrated wisdom

I’ve always been drawn to the grey areas — the spaces in between.

Not because I’m indecisive, but because life rarely fits into clean binaries. The older I get, the more I understand that truth is rarely singular. That complexity isn’t a flaw in our perception — it’s a feature of reality. Multiple things can be true at once. Opposites can live side by side.

One of the deepest grey areas I keep returning to is the space we often place between the “spiritual” and the “mundane.”

It’s common — even comforting — to think of the sacred as something elevated, removed from the grit of daily life. We associate it with rituals, altars, meditation, and scripture. We give it a kind of glow. Meanwhile, the ordinary — the chores, the noise, the arguments, the deadlines — gets pushed into another category entirely. The profane.

But the more I slow down, the more I sense: this line we draw between the sacred and the profane? It doesn’t exist.

What if every moment — even the messy, uncomfortable, overlooked ones — is already sacred?

Not just when we’re lighting a candle. But when we’re sitting in traffic. Doing the dishes. Having a difficult conversation. Crying on the floor. Laughing with a friend. Starting over. Failing. Healing. Learning.

There is divinity in all of it. Not because we try to spiritualize everything, but because spirit is already woven into the fabric of our lives.

This doesn’t mean everything is the same. It means the boundaries we cling to — between holy and ordinary, soul and self, right and wrong — are more porous than we think. The sacred doesn’t live in opposition to the profane. It includes it. Transcends it. Transforms through it.

This isn’t a call to reject structure or abandon discernment. It’s an invitation to see with different eyes. To notice how the sacred shows up disguised in the most unexpected places. To stop splitting ourselves in two.

There’s no separation between the spiritual and the mundane.

EVERYTHING is Spiritual.

There’s no divide between the sacred and the profane.

ALL THINGS are Sacred.

Perhaps the most spiritual thing we can do isn’t to escape the world, but to meet it fully, and commune with the messy.

The veil is thin. It always has been.