An Unusual Sanctuary

When I went away to college for my undergraduate degree, I was an outsider for the first time in my life. I was on a campus where no one was familiar and people who looked down on my religious beliefs (the college was Reformed Presbyterian and I was Catholic). In classes I listened to conversations that mocked my religion and outside the classroom I listened to uninformed or ignorantly informed students talking about my faith as if it was something to be ashamed of.

This was the first time I had ever been surrounded by such narrow minded individuals. I had always confronted various religious beliefs from an angle of curiosity instead of from one of disdain, and I really was not prepared to handle the situation.

Across the street from my college apartment was a beautiful wide-open park. I loved to go there late at night when the streets were all quite and I was surrounded by darkness. In the middle of this run-down, dilapidated town full of college students, there was a sanctuary. I could go there at night and not worry about being seen or questioned or criticized.

I would talk to God or just myself even. The swings were my favorite place to sit. I would glide back and forth just to feel the weightlessness. Anybody watching probably thought I was loon swinging on the swings and talking to empty space (that’s why the best time to go was after dark). That park helped me through so many problems. It also helped me to discover who I was and that I was stronger than I looked or even felt.

That is the one thing I miss about college. I haven’t been able to find any other place that calms me or encourages or reinforces me like those swings in that park. I begin to wonder if it was the actual park or my own selfish needs that made that park such a sanctuary. Whichever it is, I am glad that I was able to find it.