Sacred Ground

As a kid growing up in Georgia, there was one place you knew you didn't want to go:  Milledgeville.  That's where the "funny farm" was.  When someone was acting "crazy" or out of the ordinary we would jokingly say that they needed to go to Milledgeville.  I think it was probably around jr. high school that the joking started.  Or at least that's about when I remember it.  "He needs to take a trip down to Milledgeville," we might say, or, "We need to send her to the funny farm."  I wince now to think of the things that we said.  Jr. high is such a compassionate time.  Not.

Central State Hospital is the name of the institution we mocked.  I don't know about my peers, but I, for one, knew nothing about mental illness, and if I had, I probably wouldn't have laughed when the jokes were told.  Until today I never really knew anything about Central State Hospital, including its name, which I googled so I could be accurate here.  I now think of Milledgeville as the place where Georgia College is, the place where a dear friend of mine used to live and teach. 

Today my therapist told me that, growing up on the Eastern Shore, he thought of Williamsburg in much the same way as Georgians once thought of Milledgeville.  The place where the insane people go.  Eastern State Hospital is located in Williamsburg.  Walking distance from my house.

Life is funny, isn't it?  The outdoor labyrinth at Eastern State Hospital is the one I walk most frequently, and for the past month or so, I have been taking regular walks on the ESH campus.  It's fairly quiet, not much traffic, and there's a good portion of land that is no longer used much.  The newer buildings are all located near the front of the campus.  In the middle is the labyrinth and a good bit of green space, some of which is used as a cross-country course in the fall. Toward the back of the property are the older, abandoned buildings.  And there are lots of trees everywhere.  And deer.  The labyrinth is at the top of a slope, so it is a good place for catching the sunset.  It's wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs.

Recently I have been reading Brené Brown's books and taking an online course of hers.  In it she talks about having mantras to remind ourselves to be authentic.  One of hers is, "Don't shrink.  Don't puff up.  Stand on your sacred ground."  It's probably not a coincidence that while I've been reading Brené, I have made a commitment to walking the Eastern State labyrinth at least once a week.  The center of the labyrinth is my sacred ground.  Well, not mine of course, but a place where I feel grounded and connected to God and the earth.  Whenever I am there I turn to each of the four directions and gaze out at whatever I see.  Sometimes I sing.  Right in the center, the concrete comes together in a cross, and if you stand at center of the cross there is this really strange, cool, echo effect that I can only guess comes from the way the concrete is broken there.  If you tap your foot in each of the quadrants, a sound reverberates out, and singing is really fun because there is an amplification of the voice.  I don't know how to describe it, but it's fun to play with sound there. I hang out in the center, communing with God and nature.  It is definitely sacred ground for me.  And so, when I think of Brené's mantra, I imagine myself standing my sacred ground in the center of the labyrinth. 

It is not lost on me that I am finding peace and calm and centeredness in the middle of the campus of a mental hospital.  Some of the folks who reside in Eastern State come to SpiritWorks as part of their program, so I have friends there.  There is a stillness there that I treasure.  Sometimes as I walk the labyrinth, especially as I make my way back out from the center, I try to imagine God's healing love emanating from the labyrinth and spreading across the campus, not unlike the way I pray at the prayer station at CNU.  Like addiction, mental illness is a terrible disease.  I am embarrassed and ashamed of the way I thought about Milledgeville and Central State Hospital as a kid.  I don't think we intended harm, at least not for the most part; we really were ignorant.  And we were in jr. high.  But I don't think we were the only ones doing it.  Hopefully attitudes are changing, though not nearly quickly enough.  What I am grateful for is that sacred ground is found everywhere, and that I have found some at Eastern State.  May those who encounter it find it to be a blessing.