You Are Here

Hi. Welcome. 

This is a map. 

Not just any map. It’s a map of a church, but not just any church – this one’s old, like really, really old. It’s a red-bricked, gothic-style relic from the 14th century with no frills. Because there’s no need to dress up when you’re standing in the middle of nowhere. There is so much nowhere that on the way here you’ll think, “Wow, we’re really in the middle of nowhere.”

credit: Eliana Araque

Maybe you’ve been here before, or maybe you’ve never been this far out. But for a moment, let’s just imagine that you find yourself in Nowhereland. Like really, truly totally lost in the kind of nowhere that makes you question everything – who you are, what you’re doing, where you’re supposed to go next. When that happens, this map might be helpful. Because it could tell you that this church isn’t exactly operating as a church anymore. Now it’s a place to pause and catch your breath, and if you know the right people, you can even sleep here for a day or a week. 

Be warned that there’s not much to do here. You can bike for hours and still be nowhere. You won’t find a grocery store or a gas station, so come prepared. You’ve entered a place that exists between the past and the future, a place in transition that’s also waiting for what comes next. 

Legend 

🗝️ Key: Before you can get in, you need a key. Cool and heavy, oversized, a little absurd in its weight. At first, it’s awkward, like holding something doesn’t quite belong to you. Maybe that’s the point. You will form a relationship with this key, which will not be without its challenges. Your mastery over the key will dictate how much of the journey ahead you are able to unlock. 

🚪Door: So you’ve got the key. Now, the door. This isn’t just any door – it’s carved, wooden and oval-shaped. They don’t make doors like this anymore, that’s for sure, and this door demands a kind of reverence. It’s a door that reminds you that doors are not just things you walk through willy-nilly. This door commands respect, and the first thing it does is test you. Can you even open it with your clunky key? Can you walk through to the other side? Most people can’t do it on a first try. Most people spend more time than they want to admit struggling with the door’s lock. If you’re with friends, they might help you out, but there’s some risk in that. If you let someone else open and close all your doors, you’re never going to learn how to do it yourself. 

⛪ Nave: Inside, it’s empty. The space where people once gathered to worship is hollow and echoing. The pews are gone, and where the confessional might have been, there’s an espresso maker. Is it a holiday home? Is it still somehow a church? Light pours through the stained-glass windows, like the whole place is waiting for something big to happen. But nothing happens. The blank canvas might be filled with enlightenment and awakenings but there’s also room for doubts and anxiety. What can this nowhere place offer? The nave doesn’t give answers, only space for questions. 

🔒Gate: From inside the nave, you’ll hear voices –  people slipping through the outside gate and coming up the path, into the church. Day after day strangers, some from the bike path that runs through this ghost town, will be drawn to the church. They don’t get that you’re sleeping here, that it’s more than just an old building.

Some pilgrims who stay at the church will grow annoyed as this boundary is tested. They’ll put up signs to maintain privacy. Good luck with that. Put up a hand-written note and you’ll quickly start to wonder why the wind keeps blowing it away. It’s not very windy. Could someone really be taking it down? A quick glance in the nearby trash can reveals that your sign was not tossed away. No, it was ripped into pieces and then tossed away. The message is clear: you’ll have to accept that you are not the only one traveling through Nowhere and in need of rest. You can’t control someone outside your gate, but you can learn how to lock your front door. If you haven’t yet gained mastery over the key, you will be even more aware of your deficiencies now. 

🔔 Bell tower: As dusk settles, look at the bell tower. The bell is there, but it doesn’t ring. It’s like time has totally stopped. The silence here is so loud, amplifying every fear and worry. There’s no escaping these demons. No Wi-fi, no distractions. You are nowhere, and darker hours are coming. Visitors should remember that transformations are not about turning away from uncertainty but meeting it. Getting to know your doubts is a necessary part of having faith. 

🕯️ Altar: When night falls, this is where you sleep. The altar was once a place of ceremony and sacredness, and now it’s still a place to surrender to silence. Rest should come so easy! But it doesn’t when all around is darkness and nowhere and nothingness. How many visitors to this church felt a void of doubt? How many wanted to believe but endured dark nights of the soul? 

🦜 Rafters: Morning breaks and light filters through the rafters, an overlooked part of the church. The best way to understand their significance is through a parable of a pilgrim that once visited. The pilgrim brought with her two small birds in a cage. After several days at the church, the birds were restless and ached for their usual hours of flying. The pilgrim knew she couldn’t let the birds fly because the church ceiling was too high and she would not be able to call them back down. But mid-way through her stay, in a moment of her own restlessness, the birds escaped, soaring into the rafters and out of reach. Panic and anxiety gripped the pilgrim as she tried everything to bring them down. The more she struggled, the higher the birds flew, mocking her desperation and filling her with doubt. In the darkest hours, a fellow pilgrim, calm and steady, extended his hand. Without tricks or force – the birds returned to eat from his palm. The lesson of the rafters: in the heights of despair, the answer is not frantic action but steadiness and trust. 

🌳 Churchyard: After the rafters, step outside. If you still don’t know how to lock the door behind you, wait for a fellow pilgrim to come to your aid. Then, take in the churchyard, that liminal space between the chapel and the outside world. An oak tree rustles in the wind. Acorns fall – tapping out a morse code. Are they agreeing or disagreeing with your thoughts? You don’t need to know all the answers. Believe it or not, the stars hang in the sky even during the daytime. Life hums along – a dog pants, swans glide across the lake. There’s so much life, you can almost ignore the graveyard behind the church. People are still being buried here. It is still a place of rest. A single candle burns in a red votive. On the way to the stone remember, we are all on the way to the stone. Remember, on the way is all we have. That’s why we’re here. 

📍Steps: The last stop – stone smoothed by centuries of footsteps, a reminder that countless others have stood where you are now. The steps are neither wholly inside or outside, but something in between. A place of beginnings and endings, an unexpected spot to rest and linger. Ravens shed their feathers in the yard. The gate is half-open. You drink coffee on the steps of a building that’s lived through plagues, wars, winters –and now, time has transformed it into something more. It’s here on the steps that some pilgrims decide it’s never too late to learn how to lock and unlock a door. It’s here where you learn to master the key, where you believe in yourself again. Where you realize that you may come and you may go, but in this moment, you are now here. 

credit: HW from the guestbook