Erin Byrne McElroy

Some places ask you to slow down.

Not because life has stopped around you.
Because something in you knows to pause there.

For me, Seattle University has always been one of those places.

The Chapel of St. Ignatius.
The Celtic prayer on the wall.
The images of St. Ignatius through the different seasons of his life.
A quiet daytime Mass.
The prayer book where, when I return, I put pen to paper and write what I’m carrying in my heart right now.

Then outside, the labyrinth.

Releasing.
Receiving.
Declaring.

Walking slowly enough to hear the city around the garden.
To feel the Pacific Northwest air.
To notice the light through the trees.
To breathe.
To listen to what arises.

I’ve been thinking about the places and practices we return to.

Not because we want to go backward.

Not because we are trying to become the person we once were.

We return with everything we are carrying now.

Different questions.
Different gratitude.
Different worries.
Different people on our hearts.

The place may be familiar.

We are meeting it again in this life, at this age, in this season.

And maybe that is part of what ritual gives us.

A pause in everyday life.
A place to sit with what is sacred.
A place to hear ourselves again.

Sometimes sanctuary is a chapel.

Sometimes it’s a garden, a path, a bench, a lake, a kitchen table, a familiar coffee shop, the driver’s seat before you walk inside.

A place or practice that asks nothing of you except your presence.

Return to the familiar.
Bring your present self.

Pause long enough to notice.

Sight.
Sound.
Space.

Listen to what arises.

What place or practice does that for you?

Where do you go — physically or otherwise — when you need enough quiet to hear yourself again?

Maybe name it.
Write it down.
Tell someone.
And return to it.