I went out walking the other day in the woods just outside of Bluffton, Ohio. It was a gray day: cloudy and far too cold for the beginning of April. Yet upon arriving at our host's house, one of the other long term volunteers and I set out for a hike. As we trudged across soggy fields and past thorned trees, our conversation deepened. There were no complaints about the weather and our haranguing against the previous week's aggrieved volunteers eventually fell to a halt. We talked about life and love and our last year's obstacles. A conversation of substance. A conversation of trust and mutual dissatisfaction with a lifestyle society often presents as the status quo.
After a while, we approached a broad tree that had fallen out across the water. And, climbing out on it, we paused our conversation to sit in silence and soak up the moment. It was one of those moments wherein all facets of life appear flawless. The snow softening the trees and the quiet burble of the brook were the essence of peacefulness. The tree, on which I was mounted, had seemingly fallen at just the right moment in the decades of her existence to create a perch for my comrade and me. And we, as human and inevitably flawed as we both are, were, for that moment, perfect. The time that we sat there and the thoughts that crossed my mind during that span of five seconds or twenty years will be forever seared in my memory. For in that moment, I once again felt whole. Wholeness is a feeling that has evaded me over the past year. I have felt empty since I walked out of the Service Adventure house the day after I turned nineteen. It was a hollowness I first tried to fill with hymns and prayer. After all, hadn't they worked before? My end of the equation: believe a little stronger, try a little more and God will heal you. (DOPE-SLAP!) When I began to realize that was a load of crap, I was no longer among the mountains and mankind that had held my heartstrings together. So I sought to fill that hollow between my breasts and hammering in my head with booze and boys (okay, people) who cared only that my brain would help them pass. Upon realizing that dorm room liquor and lost sleep over papers for attendance sheets my name didn't grace was not filling me either, I switched gears once again and poured myself whole-heartedly into an institute that reeked of a life I had left behind. Eventually, I realized that deep soul pain cannot be covered: it can only be given time and grace in which to heal. I still felt broken when I came to Detroit two and a half months ago. Despite a dedication to my studies, I had dropped out of college and felt as if I was pedaling through life far too fast. No longer was I the pure and good girl who flounced in the innocence of an Easter morning Baptism. No longer could I fit in with the all-american dreamers of mortgages and Sunday potlucks. Yet, I was still clinging to the hope that the Christianity of my youth would emerge and that the wholeness I had once felt in that coddled environment would fill me again. It didn't. Instead of finding wholeness in our hymn sings and prayers. I found wholeness in the basements of East Detroit. I rediscovered my happiness with lumber in my arms and drywall dust in my hair. I hardly knew what to do with that emotion as I found myself yearning to be social and not hiding in my room. These people, without knowing it, have helped me feel whole. People who are patient, forgiving, ornery, goofy, and good. People who also desire to shirk conventionality and in some cases, to converse in the woods. People who have reminded me that I, too, don't have to be perfect, to be good. It took an eight month "sabbatical" from the Mennonite Church and three months living among it for me to realize my wholeness cannot come from the God Christianity taught me to believe in. In a way, I've come full circle. For in my desire to find peace within religion, I have found peace both with and without it. Life exists beyond religion. Spirituality exists beyond religion. And if sitting on a log with a dear friend makes me feel whole, well then maybe I should do it more often.
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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