Garden of Reflection & Remembrance
The Garden of Reflection and Remembrance contains many elements that come together to create an area uniquely for contemplation. The labyrinth is a sanctuary for those who walk while they think, while benches offer a place for those who want to sit still. Water features add a soothing dynamic, while journals allow the community to express their emotions. Additional spaces commemorate the bravery of our veterans as well as historic university milestones.
This garden is a deeply treasured gem on campus, a place with established ties to the community. It has served as a focal point for numerous programs, most notably the Walk for Remembrance in honor of September 11. It has helped many remember their loved ones or come to terms with the turbulent changes life so often hurls in our path. And it is a pleasant space for everyday visits—a place to pause and catch your breath. We also offer a number of guided programs in the Garden and Labyrinth.
The Story Behind the Gardens
The goal was to construct a lush, open space for meditation—a place free from everyday demands, like clogged commuter routes and stressful schedules. In the wake of this, and recent tragedies both national and close to home, it has never been more important for the campus community to have a place to stop and reflect. To address this need, the Memorial Chapel was awarded a $200,000 grant from the Open Spaces Sacred Places Foundation to create a garden of Reflection and Remembrance on the South side of the Chapel in the spring of 2007.
An Invitation to All
The garden is representative of the campus religious diversity as well as community cohesion, and marries refreshing natural energy with quiet solace. Stop by sometime—all are welcome.
The Gardened Heart Journal Project
In the Garden of Reflection and Remembrance, journals sit on shelves under two benches, waiting for visitors to write on their blank pages. Throughout the seasons, students, staff, community members, parents, and alumni have filled these journals with quick notes, long reveries, hopes, dreams, and sorrows. The passage of time is indicated in the journals as the semester begins, midterms approach, finals come crashing down, summer nears, and graduation is celebrated.
Writers expressed an eagerness to connect with their community on the journal pages, a yearning to be heard, and a need for their story to be recorded. Some authors simply desired to express their thoughts and feelings, however profound, insignificant, or fleeting. Overall, the tone of the journal entries is one of sharing, concern, and honest discernment.
As with many projects, this one began with a question: “What are people sharing or experiencing through the journals?” This simple question came to be answered through an engaging and eye-opening process. In the end, fifteen journals were reviewed, containing 3,162 journal entries/excerpts (including drawings). This report focuses on the themes of religion, contemplation, meditation, thoughtfulness, the garden and labyrinth, sacred places, relationships, campus experiences, suicide and depression, and encouragement and community.
View the report in all its beauty. These pages will make you smile, make you laugh, and make you cry. On each page, a new unique and personal story worth sharing.
Listening Garden
Central to any conversation we have with others is the ability to listen and listen well. This garden space exhorts us to make the time to listen and to practice this skill in community with those around us.
Through evocative plantings, appealing seating arrangements and invitational language, we are called to step out of our comfort zone to make meaningful connections with others. The depth of that conversation or dialogue in large part depends on our willingness and skill to make room to listen.
Part of the process of listening also involves listening carefully to yourself, to spend the time and have the confidence to listen to and nurture your own hopes and wishes and dreams. No doubt, that self understanding, guided by listening to yourself, will also deepen the way you communicate with those around you as well as enrich your own life path.
This Garden also asks us to actively listen to nature. What lessons for our lives can we learn from listening to the cycles and rhythms of nature? What can we do to slow down and fully embrace the beauty and simplicity of nature? Nature itself can give us answers by causing us to pause and become lifted up by our surroundings.
