I am fortunate to live within walking distance of a prayer labyrinth here in Lake Zurich. A labyrinth is a metaphor for life…it is a picture of the pilgrimage we are on as we journey with God. You can think of it in three parts: part 1 is the journey in (coming to God), part 2 is being in the center (with God), part 3 is the journey out (sent back into the world). It is not a maze, but one path that leads to one center, and then out again from that center. It is full of twists and turns that your eye has trouble distinguishing and making out until you are actually walking them, so you cannot plan for them. At some points, you feel as though you have reached the end of your pilgrimage…the center is in sight. But another twist leads you away so that you realize now that you are farther away instead. And yet, as you journey on, though sometimes you are physically farther away from the center than you were just one minute ago, you are also paradoxically always drawing nearer and nearer to the center.
Each time I have used this community labyrinth, God has spoken to me. I feel a with-ness with Him there. I don’t attribute this to any magical qualities of the labyrinth…perhaps it is just the space that I make in my life to meet with Him, the rhythm of the walking and the silence that follows in my head, allowing me to finally pay attention to the One who is always reaching out to me. Each time I make the decision to go to the labyrinth, I wonder if it will be the same. Will God meet with me? I wonder if I will get bored because I’ve done it too many times. Will the novelty wear off?
The journey to the middle is often, for me, a time of “checking in” with God (and myself, because let’s face it, I am rarely that attentive to myself either). I recognize emotions I have been experiencing but not acknowledging. I wonder a bit about why I may have been neglecting that emotion. I recognize it. Nod to it. Acknowledge its presence. And in so doing, I am saying to God, “Here I am. It’s not pretty, or tidy, but it’s what there is.”
It can also a time of “casting off”. I become aware of lies I have been living into. This often follows from just checking in and realizing what feelings have been lying beneath life’s surface. This past week, as I walked slowly but steadily toward the middle, I recognized the burden I had been carrying all week as I have prepared to preach at my church later this month. We’ve been journeying through the book of Revelation for the past few months. Recognizing that I felt fearful and anxious–rather than joyful and excited to proclaim God’s good news (which is how I wish I could feel whenever I preach)–I began to cast off my desire to “get it right.” I began to cast off my desire to understand each and every detail of the book so that I could appear knowledgable, and WORTHY in front of this congregation. I began to shed the lie that I could ever earn the right to preach or minister in God’s Kingdom. I began to sense, as I moved steadily nearer and nearer to God in the center, that this journey was being propelled forth by Someone other than myself. And He was okay….truly okay…with where I am right now as a preacher. Inexperienced–in life and in ministry. Young–and not in a good way. Not at the top of my seminary class from many years ago, and not exactly in the thick of Christian academia these days!!
The “journey in” always begins with a good amount of restlessness on my part. I long to skip the twists and turns and just get right to the center. But it is those twists and turns that slow me, that force me to see and embrace where I am in this moment, to be honest about all that I am carrying with me, feeling and receiving the permission God gives me to be just where I am and nowhere else–not further along or further ahead–so that when I finally do get to the center, I really am all there. Mind. Body. Spirit. Emotions. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And God welcomes it. All of it. All of me.
What places, practices, or disciplines help you to meet fully with God?