REFLECTIONS ON WALING THE LABYRINTH

Elizabeth Raid

“Not number 358 again!” I sighed, as the pastor of the small church where I served as minister of music requested that the choir sing “I Come to the Garden Alone.”

“That hymn is too syrupy and ‘schmulsy,’” (as I heard it described when growing up) I wanted to say. Four-part German chorales were the sustenance of my hymn singing experience. “And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.” What did I find so offensive about those words? The image of Jesus strolling beside me in a garden, perhaps even holding my hand, did not match the God I knew as mighty Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

That God got things done, made the crooked straight, the rough places plain. This gentle God could be seen in the carrying of the lamb and leading of those with young, but even that God didn’t drip with emotion or look one in the eye like the God who walked hand in hand with me in the garden might want to do.

The only redeeming image in the garden song was that of walking. I’m an avid walker, and walking has a positive, healthy spin. Besides being good exercise, walking is my prayer time; my Scripture memory time; my hop, skipping, happy time; my slow and reflective time; or a visiting-with-friends time. Pondering the walking image drew me to a spiritual practice that involves walking—the labyrinth.

On a handout I wrote for a recent labyrinth walk, I quoted four-year-old Asa, “If you want to know God better, take a walk with God.” Labyrinths were not standard fare for good Mennonite girls growing up in the middle of the twentieth century. Anything that might resemble a Catholic icon or ritual drew ridicule, just like the gospel garden song at the other end of the theological spectrum did.

It was during my midlife journey to seminary two years ago that I discovered the labyrinth. As an ancient shape with universal and timeless appeal, the labyrinth offers me a new way to experience the metaphor of a journey—walking and talking with God. When I walk its unicursal path into the center and back out again, all of my senses seem to open to God. Because of its one-way path, my brain and busy thinking functions can coast, and my intuition and inner self can begin to emerge. As I follow its narrow way in perfect pattern, I am reminded of God’s order and plan for my life and for the world.

Because I love to be out-of-doors, I favor walking labyrinths in natural settings. Breathtaking and mysterious things can happen, such as the sudden wind that brushed the tall pines while I sat in the center of a labyrinth in someone’s backyard in Colorado. The bird songs or the fragrances of spring can awake new awareness as I walk outdoors. The hardness of the stone path can remind me of times I am hard-hearted or it may reassure me of God’s steadfastness. The softness of soil or grass on my bare feet sensitizes my body, allowing God’s presence to flow up through me at the same time as I feel connected to the clay of creation and all living things.

When walking inside, quiet, repetitive music can tune my breath to the rhythm of God’s heart, or votive candles placed around the outside points can remind me of the light of Christ within each of us. The confined space mirrors God’s nearness. I wonder if we could be walking hand in hand or step by step.

The freedom and unhurriedness of my walk reminds me of the timelessness of God. The labyrinth, like God, invites me to a place of tranquility and stability, a groundedness in the face of the chaos and change that surround my daily life. The labyrinth stands in contrast to the everyday maze of life that confuses and offers countless choices. In the rosetta at the center I can sit and wait, simply be.

I enjoy walking the labyrinth in solitude and in the company of others. There is no right or wrong way to walk it. Sometimes walking the labyrinth becomes a silent prayer in which I thank God for blessing my life. Others times I sing or cry during part of the journey. There are times when I ask a question or repeat a petition, release a past hurt or pray for another person as I walk. My steps can be slow and steady, or quick and dancelike. There are times when all of these happen during one walk.

Walking the labyrinth blends my need to grow spiritually as an individual with my need to interact in community with other travelers. Such walking presents me with the visual and tactile experience of the journey into the center of my being and then out into the world. It offers an opening to healing and hope for my broken life and world. It invites me to be renewed and reenergized.

“And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.” I think of Elijah’s walk with God or the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Yes, I can embrace the words of the garden hymn after all. Being in the company of a human God doesn’t have to water down my theology. If God can walk and talk, even laugh and cry, as God’s creation, I too can feel deeply and experience life more fully.

Sophia, who was with the Creator at the beginning, gives me wisdom to experience God’s presence in many and varied ways. By whatever name I call God, the Divine is both transcendent and imminent. God goes before me, is above, below, and beyond me. God is with me. Like four-year-old Asa, as I learn to walk with and know God better, I can invite others to join the journey, to walk the labyrinth of life hand in hand with a real, live everyday mysterious God.

Facts about the labyrinth:
• Earliest documentation from 1300 B.C.

• The most famous is in Chartres Cathedral in France and dates from 1194 A.D.

• Different shapes can be labyrinths; the two most common are the eleven-circuit symmetrical Chartres type; the other is the Cretin or classical with three, seven, or more circuits.

• Labyrinths are found in nearly every state in the United States and around the world.

• The oldest one in the United States is a Hopi symbol of birth and creation found in northern Arizona.

• The Reverend Lauren Artress of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco pioneered in the resurgence of the labyrinth during the 1980s.

—Elizabeth Raid recently completed seminary studies at Earlham School of Religion in partnership with Bethany Theological Seminary, Richmond, Indiana. Classes in feminine spirituality and discernment of call and gifts, along with friends, fed her interest in labyrinths. She has walked labyrinths in seven states and looks forward to building one to share with others.