Outside Reading #3 - The Rebel

For my Thanksgiving break I took a trip to the mountains of West Virginia, tucked away and cut off from the connection of the internet and Newport News. In the small cabin my parents and I stayed in, i spent several hours of our last night reading the guest book I found among the outdated magazines and old newspapers on the fireplace. In it, I found the entries of those who have been finding peace and love in the same cabin since 2007. May of the entries I read conveyed the connection of the loneliness of the cabin and the vast amount of love which was held inside. The first entry in 2007 stated "my husband and I are celebrating thirty years of marriage this weekend, this place was the perfect space to be reminded of why we fell in love. We hope that by leaving this journal, others can share their stories with those to come" (Rebel Guest Book). As I found myself reading each page, I also read the stories of couples in love celebrating everything from a new engagement to years of marriage. One couple even wrote, "We came here after we first got married seven years ago, told we are sharing this cabin with our two children and still feel the same sense of love and time together as we did when this cabin was only the two of us" (Rebel Guest Book). I made a connection with these readings because I was there with my parents celebrating a weekend of thanks and love outside of the busy world we typically lived in. Additionally, I was able to connect with Lane's axioms of a sacred place of being called to the place. I felt many of the people who had visited the cabins before wrote of the several time they had been called there for whatever reason. They were called to the cabin to celebrate and for whatever reason the cabin called them back, some every year for many years. For many people, including my family, the place became sacred as it was a space which fostered the things that often got lost in our digital world, and so we were called to it to remember the reason life is so beautiful.