Joanna says:
If I’m feeling particularly upset or heartworn, or if I have an important decision to make and the two sides are so equally balanced that letting go of either option seems inevitably wrong, I’ll sneak into Bond Chapel and spend a little while sitting in one of the pews or kneeling in the very front. But only if I’m sure that no one else is in there. Especially no one actually affiliated with a religion.
Sometimes I recite poems–Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking”, more often than not–or I’ll ask the question that’s bothering me. Or I’ll just tell myself it will all be fine. Anything that can be repeated in cadence, over and over, until it soothes instead of agitates, clears rather than clutters the mind.
I don’t know if it’s the stained glass windows, the small, intimate space, or the feeling of a building that’s situated right in the middle of the quad but consistently overlooked by rushing students; in any case, it’s very strange that the symbolic home of something that never fails to frighten and dismay me should be the place I seek peace.
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