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.