Walk With Me

One of the first things I did when I moved to Ohio last year was try and locate a prayer labyrinth to walk.  For years, I had been walking the labyrinth at my friend Laura’s church with her, once a week, and it was a spiritual habit so important to us that we even made a point to walk during those first harsh months of Covid, giving each other space on the walk, wearing our masks even outside, while the Holy Spirit wind swirled around us.

The first labyrinth my dad and I found in Ohio was overgrown in long grass in a large, abandoned field.

“I think it’s over here,” my dad said, pointing.

I stared down at my feet at a rock I had nearly tripped over.  “I don’t think it’s over there.  I think we’re actually standing on it.”

And we were.

There was a school nearby and I wondered how many kids had literally and figuratively stumbled over the labyrinth, having no idea what it was—did they see the path?  Did they think it was natural?  Did they imagine aliens putting it there like crop circles?

The second labyrinth we found was at Jesuit retreat center.  It was located near the river and shaded by giant trees.  It was beautiful and as soon as we got out of the car and took a few steps, we were promptly greeted by security who escorted us out for not checking in first at the front desk.

Do not mess with the Jesuits.

The third labyrinth I found was at an Episcopal church I visited one Sunday.  The church was old, the labyrinth new, laid out in beautiful brick and cobblestone.  I made sure to get the church’s permission, though, before I walked it.

Earlier this year, I bought my first house, with my own tiny, tiny yard to maintain and it is still a hope of mine, maybe this coming spring to put in a small—very small—prayer labyrinth in my backyard. 

If you have never walked a labyrinth before, let me explain it the way my pastor once explained it to me when she told me of her desire to build a living labyrinth at our church, one with a path marked by shrubs.  I had never heard of a labyrinth before, and when she mentioned it my first thought was Greek mythology and a very angry and perturbed minotaur.

But Pastor Debbie explained to me that a prayer labyrinth was not a maze to get lost in but a place to find yourself in.

As you move throughout the labyrinth, at times you feel like you are making great progress toward the center, only to have the path take you back out again among the outer rings.  In labyrinths where the path is defined by shrubs, there is no cheating.  You cannot skip ahead to the end or grow bored and just walk out—you must follow the path to its end, trusting that it does end, and that God is walking with you each step of the way.

Many years ago, I stopped by the church one morning to walk the grounds in contemplation.  I turned the corner around the church and caught sight of the labyrinth sitting there by the water.  I had my camera with me because wildlife was abundant in our church in the woods and sure enough, I immediately saw something brown dart behind the greenery of the labyrinth.

Some four-legged animal was walking the path.

I took out my camera and zoomed in expecting to see a rabbit and instead found myself staring eye to eye with a bobcat.

It was, to this day, the most profound spiritual encounter I have ever had in nature.

The Holy Spirit comes in many forms.

The labyrinth that my friend Laura created at her last church was carefully planned out and painted by her on a concrete slab near a retention pond.  She did all that work during the hottest days of the summer.  I think, at one point, there was even a hurricane headed our way, but still she would not be slowed down.

Laura and I walked that path together hundreds of times and I’m sure she walked it herself thousands.  We walked it at night, during the solstice, with tea lights marking the path.  We walked it during Lent, marking the Stations of the Cross along the way.  We walked it together.  We walked it with friends.  We walked it with strangers.  We even walked it with a duck who decided to join us one morning perhaps thinking there were breadcrumbs in it for her.  Incidentally, the duck had no concept of walking an actual path and staying within the lines, but perhaps there’s a message there.

A prayer labyrinth can seem like a winding path, but I always felt myself unwinding when I walked it.

When Laura’s church purchased a new building and decided to move, Laura had a new task, to bring yet another prayer labyrinth to this new location.  Over the last weeks, she has sent me pictures of the progress.  I have walked in labyrinths of brick and concrete and big, chunky mulch, but this new labyrinth of Laura’s is different still … one that looks like sand and stone.  It looks very much like a Zen garden and invites peace.  And watching it all come together, even from all the way up in Ohio, has been a spiritual joy for me.

One of my favorite post-resurrection stories, is the one of Jesus appearing on the road to Emmaus.  There are two disciples walking and talking when Jesus appears next to them and walks with them for a while.  They somehow do not recognize Him, but they invite Him to stay with them, so He walks back with them, sits with them, breaks bread with them and only then do they see Him for who He truly is.  Only at that moment, does He disappear and then the two disciples say something quite beautiful in Luke 24:32, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

“Were not our hearts burning within us?”

It’s not indigestion.  It’s the Holy Spirit.

And that is my hope for everyone who walks the prayer labyrinth, that whether they walk it by themselves, or with a friend or with a stranger—whether they encounter a bobcat or a duck, they will feel the Holy Spirit moving within them and know they do not walk alone.

Amen. 

A Joy that Cannot be Contained

Yesterday before the service began, those of us in the pews watched as a little girl, probably no older than four years old, wandered away from her mother and began exploring the church.

Her eyes were wide.

Her mouth open.

She looked all around her and I couldn’t help but narrate in my head everything she saw.

Yes, there’s the altar rail.

And this is the pew.

And that smell is old wood varnish.

And these are candles individually lit.

And here is the sun, pouring through an upper window.

And yes, here we all are, sitting here with you, smiling and laughing at your joy.

Because, sweet child, that look on your face—I know it well.

It’s the moment when you first realize that you are hungry for something, for the mystery, for the ethereal, for the unexplainable, for whatever or whoever it is that is resting just beyond the veil. 

It’s the first time you know that there is something out there, something huge and magnificent and frightening and joyful and beautiful, something that is in (like the movie title) all things everywhere all at once. 

Keep exploring child of God.

Never stop searching.

Never stop running toward the Love that watches over us.

Never stop believing.

Never lose that joy.

Baptisms and Water Balloon Fights

“We talked about baptism and then had a water balloon fight.”

This was how Reverend Jane explained to us this morning how the youth lock-in went last night.

A few minutes later, she was asking us about our own baptisms, but I was still chuckling, I told them, still imagining Reverend Jane talking about baptism with the kids and then chasing them down with water balloons as if to say, “Come back here, I’m just trying to save you!”

I hope Reverend Jane wasn't embarrassed.  I hope she understood just how on point her water balloon/baptism imagery was.

I mean when you think about it isn’t the water balloon fight a perfect image of baptism?

One of the points Reverend Jane was trying to make this morning in our “Walking the Way of Love” class between services is that baptism is not a one and done type of thing.  Yes, we may only be baptized in the church once, but we need to be renewing and revisiting our baptismal covenant frequently, perhaps even daily.

Which brings me back to the water balloon fight.

Every day, we run from God.

Every. Single. Day.

We run. 

We say things like “I can do this myself.”

We are judgmental.

We are unforgiving to others.

We are unforgiving to ourselves.

We are miserable.

And every day, God chases after us with the promise of salvation, with saving us from our misery, with the promises of hope and joy—and we run from Him.

Our baptismal covenant reminds us to stop running—to just stop and take a breath and turn to God.

Turn to the Way of Love.

And here’s the thing about water balloon fights—I haven’t been involved in too many in my life, but I always remember them involving lots of laughter and silliness and love among friends. 

Stop running from God and don’t be afraid to get a little wet.

 

 

Hummingbird

I have a bird bucket list.

A list (mostly in my head, not actually written out) of birds I want to see before I die, hopefully randomly in nature, though I suppose in a pinch I would accept a zoo visit.

At the top of that list sits—or flutters—the hummingbird.

It has been shocking to me that I have never seen one.  Hummingbird feeders are ubiquitous.  My step-mother keeps one near the back deck of their house and claims to see hummingbirds quite frequently.

As for me—nothing.

At least not until this past Saturday.  I was at my dad and step-mother’s house doing laundry and dog-sitting for a couple of hours, sitting in the living room, watching reruns of Bargain Block, when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the flapping of wings outside a far window.

I hopped up, investigated, saw nothing and sat back down on the couch.

Over many years of birdwatching, I have learned to notice the small things, the flutter of wings, the flash of color among green leaves, the sound of a burbling brook which turns out to be—somewhat bizarrely—the call of a cowbird.

I notice the little things, because those things might be nothing, but sometimes turn out to be quite something to behold.

So, on Saturday, as I sat back to watch TV, I found myself glancing out the window every few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bird, any bird, really—when, once again, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something gray dart by the window.

I leapt up again and this time, I saw it.  A small grayish bird, with a pale splash of red, and long, hooked beak, hovering about a foot away from the hummingbird feeder.

It was there for only a breath.

Seriously, for as long as it took me to take a breath and hold it—and then it was gone.

I did not see it again.

I obviously didn’t get a picture.

But it was, without a doubt, my first hummingbird.

And I might have missed it had I not conditioned myself for years to be on the lookout for birds.

Trust me, if your daily goal is to find birds and, if possible, get a picture, you will be attuned to the world differently than if your goal once you step outside your door is to simply go grocery shopping.

It is the same way with God.

One of my goals, when I do workshops with people, is to get them to see that God is everywhere in their lives.  You don’t have to invite God to enter your life.  He is already there.  You just have to learn to recognize His presence.

And recognizing God’s presence in our lives, looking for God in our lives, needs to be a daily habit—not one, like flossing, that we know is good for us and promise our dentist that we will do, but ultimately don’t—but a habit that becomes as natural to us as breathing—and ultimately as essential to us as breathing.

At the end of each day, if we ask ourselves, “Where did I see God today?” eventually, we will see Him everywhere, without even thinking about it.

But we have to make it a central purpose of our lives or we will miss out.

For all we know, the Holy Spirit has been hovering like that hummingbird right next to us, not for seconds—not for minutes—not for days—but for years, and we have been blind to Him, focusing instead on other things.

Yesterday, I went out to take some Fall pictures.  Fall is nowhere close to being at its peak, but as it is my first Fall in more than twenty-five years, I don’t want to miss a second of it.

I also don’t want to miss a second of God’s presence in my life.

So where did I see Him yesterday?

I saw Him in a fallen leaf I found that had been caught by a flower before it hit the ground.  White flower, brown leaf—and all I could see was God holding us up when we have fallen.

Where will you see God today?

 

Speaking in Verse

 

Yesterday I heard a strange noise outside my front door and just like all those people who die first in horror movies, I decided (without even looking through the peephole) to swing open the door to see what was what.

There was a man standing there.

A large man.

Holding a Swiffer sweeper.

“I’m cleaning spiderwebs,” he said.

“Oh thank goodness,” I said, a wave of relief falling over me.

The spiders here in Ohio are insane.  They’re large and they don’t build the pretty, pearlescent with dew drops, spiderwebs you see hanging off cattails and other vegetation in Florida.

These spiders build fortresses.

There is one particular spider who is currently prepping my door for Halloween.  His spiderwebs are so thick, they look like the cotton you pull apart to create webs for Halloween decorations.  And this spider feels it necessary to build his web right across my door, so every morning, I open the door and a gust of wind blows the web into my face.

I have learned to step back and duck.

And so, I had never been so happy to see a man standing at my door with a duster.

And I am sure he had never seen someone so happy to see him because of said duster.

But I needed him.

And there he was.

A couple of weeks ago, I met with the rector of the church I’m feeling called to join.  We spoke for about an hour and she mentioned to me that every day she prays Luke 10:2 “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”  Meaning she was always looking for people who were willing to bring their talent and skills to the church.

Later that afternoon, after I had gotten home, I texted her saying, “You say Luke 10:2.  I say Isaiah 6:8.”

Isaiah 6:8.  I actually had a shirt made a month or so ago with just that on the front.

Isaiah 6:8.  God asked, “Whom shall I send?  And I said, ‘Here I am, send me.’”  That’s the Kendra Lacy translation. 

But the three most important words are these, “Here I am.”

Here I am.

Isaiah 6:8 is about answering the call.  And for me it’s about answering the call when maybe we don’t even know what it is we are being called to do.  All we know is that God has called us and we make ourselves available to Him for whatever it is He needs.

I’m sure the man sweeping away spiderwebs has another job title.  Probably Maintenance Man.  And I’m doubtful that on his list of duties, sweeping spiderwebs is listed. 

But every morning he shows up and he’s told what needs to be done that day.

And he does it.

Whatever it is, even if it’s sweeping spiderwebs.

“The spiderwebs come back almost as soon as I take them down,” he told me yesterday, “but it gives me something to do.”

Purpose.

We all search for purpose.

Reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

Most often that purpose is going to be work.  We all need money to live after all.  

What is God’s purpose for us, though?

If you want to know, start with a simple prayer.

And say to God simply, “Here I am.”

 

 

 

 

Philippians 3:20

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

The beauty of the Holy Spirit

is that inside us all,

we carry a little piece of heaven.

 

And it is the quickening

of our heart,

and the catch

in our breath

 

that tells us

the Kingdom of God

lives here now

within us,

 

calling to us,

demanding of us,

 

that we be something better,

that we are something better,

that we are of heaven,

and heaven is of God,

 

and we are so much more

than we can possibly imagine.

 

We are beloved.

We are sons and daughters

of the Creator, the Redeemer,

the One who is Love.

 

Amen.

That Was Fun!

“That was fun!” I said to myself in the car on the way home from church this morning, a smile plastered on my face.

Let’s be honest, I'm not sure how often one thinks of Sunday morning services as fun.

So you might wonder what was so fun about this Rite I no music service?  And I will tell you it wasn’t the service itself.  The service was fine.

It was the building.  It was the grounds.  It was being in a church that was about 150 years old and feeling the Holy Spirit saturating every piece of wood in there from altar rail to pew.  And yes there were the hard, no cushion Puritan Pews—as I call them—and they were fine.

But you could feel the Spirit tremble inside.

And the grounds—beautiful flowers.  I had so many photo ops and that gave me such peace—and then I noticed a clearing, like a courtyard.

“No way,” I whispered.  “Is that a labyrinth?”

And it was!  It was a prayer labyrinth that I didn’t expect to find and it was gorgeous, laid out in a pattern I hadn’t walked before.

I have learned in my two months in Ohio that I was spoiled with prayer labyrinths in Florida, spoiled with being able to walk them whenever I wanted.

Prior to today, the two labyrinths I had seen in Ohio—one was abandoned and overgrown and the other involved the Jesuits siccing security on my dad and me (a story for another day).

So you better believe I walked that labyrinth.  People were pulling in the parking lot for the next service, and I walked that labyrinth with no reservations, no shyness.  I don’t know how many people ever walk that labyrinth and maybe everyone who pulled in was wondering who that strange woman was, walking theirs, and I hope—I hope they wondered.  I hope I brought some mystery to their day.

I need to go back.  I need to get in touch with the church and see about getting a tour and taking more pictures and learning if this is the place God is leading me to.

But for today—I had fun.