labyrinth

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Let me start with a confession about my cynicism, to get that out of the way. Sometimes when I think about the labyrinth, especially after I haven't walked one for some time I think, "I've done this before, I know what it's like. I don't need to do this again." And then I walk it and it works.

The first time I walked a labyrinth I was in college, and helping with a youth lock-in at St. David's, Austin. Now St. David's has a beautiful outdoor, stone labyrinth, but that time we taped it out in the parish hall. An ancient, sacred prayer path in painter's tape.

The following summer, we taped one out on the gym floor at Camp Allen, then one on the stage of the parish hall of St. Mark's, San Marcos. I've also walked the canvas ones and one of my very favorites was a labyrinth at College of the Transfiguration, Grahamstown, South Africa. It was made from rocks lining the edges of a path our in the yard of the college.

I had the idea to carve one in Port Aransas last year during Holy Week; I did and it was such a beautiful experience. Walking the labyrinth alone has it's own solemnity and leads one, as whole person, through a prayer and reflection that mirrors our life with it's unexpected turns, apparent dead-ends (at which we have to turn around, change direction) where we find the path does continue, and even lost of orientation: not knowing how close-or-far we are from the "center."

Another level of the beauty is revealed when a group walks the labyrinth together. Then a slow, meditative dance occurs. A group of individuals at different places on their journey, sometimes walking side-by-side, sometimes seeming to walk in opposite directions, walking next to someone for a time, and then walking next to someone else; it's a living metaphor for the spiritual journey we are on in life. It is wonderful to engage in our own journey, and even more beautiful to journey with a community.

Each time I walk a labyrinth, with my spirit-body fully engaged in prayer, I remember the power of this prayer tool, and I'm glad I walked it. I look forward (without the occasional cynicism) to walking the sand-carved labyrinth again this Holy Week, (Monday at marker 3) to see what little insight unfolds in the twists and turns of the the path this time.

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