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A PLACE APART |
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a teaching community where all types of people can come for a time to break from the world and rediscover the new way of living introduced by Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit. |
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Waiting in the Dark I am a twenty-six year-old woman who grew up in a tiny town on the eastern side of Ohio. I have been in and out of charismatic churches, house churches, and a few different faith-based communities over my life. Throughout the years I've been taught what an educated, North American, spiritually, socially, and ecologically conscious human is. And I do not believe the life twenty-first century society has laid out for me or for the rest of humanity is anything to get excited about. I have been taught that I am separate from the people, environment and animals around me. That the solution to finding happiness and fulfillment is outside of myself. That the only way to be happy is to become better than I am. Recently, however, I have begun to question this philosophy. What if the happiness and fulfillment I seek is actually within and all around me? What if it's staring me in the face, but I have become blind to it? I don't yet know what I have been blinded to. But I suspect discovering the truth will mean shutting off the florescent lights I have been living by, and waiting in the dark. A part of me remembers what the sun feels like, and I will no longer settle for artificial light. Maybe if anyone who feels this way will wait in the dark with me, together we can remember the truth. Megan Garver was at A Place Apart for an extended stay in August and September 2010, and will continue working through the year on community building.
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