"As between the soul and the body there is a bond,
so are the body and its environment linked together."
- Kahlil Gibran
- Kahlil Gibran
"For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.
Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.
When you search for me, you will find me;
if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord..."
- Jeremiah 29: 11 - 14a
Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you.
When you search for me, you will find me;
if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord..."
- Jeremiah 29: 11 - 14a
Today I ventured outdoors to Prairie View to visit a labyrinth. I journeyed there with my Spiritual Formation classmates and Professor. It was a nice experience. The labyrinth is tucked in a clearing of small-ish trees and tall shrubs. It's been designed after the Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral in France, as seen below.
Walking a labyrinth is supposed to take you in a very meandering path to a center and then out again. This exercise was, for me, an attempt to place myself in a natural setting while reflecting meditatively on the activity in my life. I have always considered Labyrinth walking as a practical exercise of laying one's burden's down in a systematic way while moving toward a centering of a wholly unburdened person and a peace discovery in the middle of all the chaos.
So, upon arriving at the mouth of the Labyrinth, I asked God to join me and set off. It is remarkable to me that I was immediately comforted in the knowledge that I was moving toward the center of something that would cradle me. However, as the path suddenly veered away from the center I started to worry, panic, get anxious - feel afraid. I was moving toward the fringes. I know that there is little protection on the fringe. And here I was making myself vulnerable in walking slowly, contemplating my life, and carefully picking out the "stuff" that I wanted to lay down on my path behind me. Of course, no one else can see it, but that's not the point. I can. And I wasn't comfortable making myself spiritually "naked". But I plodded on.
By now, other people have started into the Labyrinth and I am noticing something. Whenever I walk past a person, I think: "Oh how nice to see someone else on this pathway..." We're walking together, and sometimes I seem to be leading, sometimes following, it's neat how the Labyrinth's pattern makes us "cross paths" even though we are all on our own journey. When they are closer to the fringe than I, I think: "Wow, it's like they are protecting me..." and vise versa when I am closer to the edges - it may be scary there, but I feel at times as though I am protecting someone else closer in.
Plodding along, laying out my burdens, lightening my proverbial load, making my way to the center. And eventually, after all the twists and turns, I get there. And there is a bloom with one central rock. My rock. The rock on which we have all been placed. I take some time to thank God for all the good in my life; to earnestly pray about the "stuff" and the people that I am struggling with; and to reflect back on what I have laid out in this particular journey.
And then it's time to walk back. The curious thing to me is how you have to retrace your steps in order to get out of the Labyrinth. There isn't an immediate exit. This is not a Point A to Point B journey. It's a Point A to Point A trip. So, you have some time to collect your thoughts, reflect even more on what you did to get to the center, pack it all up, and move along.
True to form, I did just that. I noticed yet another thing: all those heavy burdens? Not so heavy anymore, not large and cumbersome, and certainly not taking up all that much space in my life anymore. And I have this new posture. I am taller, looking ahead or straight up or down - observing the natural setting around me, admiring the freshly falling snow, and reveling in the peace. But, I am not focused on the ground, or on me, so much anymore. I pick up those burdens, now really just bothers, and put them in a "pocket" - so much lighter.
And then, it's over. I exit the Labyrinth, and take a moment to thank God for walking with me. A truly wonderful experience.
Walking a labyrinth is supposed to take you in a very meandering path to a center and then out again. This exercise was, for me, an attempt to place myself in a natural setting while reflecting meditatively on the activity in my life. I have always considered Labyrinth walking as a practical exercise of laying one's burden's down in a systematic way while moving toward a centering of a wholly unburdened person and a peace discovery in the middle of all the chaos.
So, upon arriving at the mouth of the Labyrinth, I asked God to join me and set off. It is remarkable to me that I was immediately comforted in the knowledge that I was moving toward the center of something that would cradle me. However, as the path suddenly veered away from the center I started to worry, panic, get anxious - feel afraid. I was moving toward the fringes. I know that there is little protection on the fringe. And here I was making myself vulnerable in walking slowly, contemplating my life, and carefully picking out the "stuff" that I wanted to lay down on my path behind me. Of course, no one else can see it, but that's not the point. I can. And I wasn't comfortable making myself spiritually "naked". But I plodded on.By now, other people have started into the Labyrinth and I am noticing something. Whenever I walk past a person, I think: "Oh how nice to see someone else on this pathway..." We're walking together, and sometimes I seem to be leading, sometimes following, it's neat how the Labyrinth's pattern makes us "cross paths" even though we are all on our own journey. When they are closer to the fringe than I, I think: "Wow, it's like they are protecting me..." and vise versa when I am closer to the edges - it may be scary there, but I feel at times as though I am protecting someone else closer in.
Plodding along, laying out my burdens, lightening my proverbial load, making my way to the center. And eventually, after all the twists and turns, I get there. And there is a bloom with one central rock. My rock. The rock on which we have all been placed. I take some time to thank God for all the good in my life; to earnestly pray about the "stuff" and the people that I am struggling with; and to reflect back on what I have laid out in this particular journey.
And then it's time to walk back. The curious thing to me is how you have to retrace your steps in order to get out of the Labyrinth. There isn't an immediate exit. This is not a Point A to Point B journey. It's a Point A to Point A trip. So, you have some time to collect your thoughts, reflect even more on what you did to get to the center, pack it all up, and move along.
True to form, I did just that. I noticed yet another thing: all those heavy burdens? Not so heavy anymore, not large and cumbersome, and certainly not taking up all that much space in my life anymore. And I have this new posture. I am taller, looking ahead or straight up or down - observing the natural setting around me, admiring the freshly falling snow, and reveling in the peace. But, I am not focused on the ground, or on me, so much anymore. I pick up those burdens, now really just bothers, and put them in a "pocket" - so much lighter.
And then, it's over. I exit the Labyrinth, and take a moment to thank God for walking with me. A truly wonderful experience.
