Have you ever walked a labyrinth? What might you be attracted to such a practice? Why would you hesitate?
Have you ever encountered ordinary things that suddenly became a symbol for something more? Have you used ordinary bread and ordinary juice and believed that somehow Christ met you in a special way among that company of believers reconnecting with a living story?
Symbols, images, embodiment, story — we are walking on a dusty road when suddenly something blazes and we recognize the Christ among us. Wendell Berry writes in The Gift of Gravity:
The incarnate Word is with us,
is still speaking, is present
always, yet leaves no sign
but everything that is.
Scott Boren reflects on his experience of the labyrinth:
“Two weeks ago, I sat in a recording studio for a day and a half. After recording 24 segments of teaching, I was wasted. I found myself at the end of my emotions… As I walked around, I noticed a labyrinth week. I had read a lot about praying through a labyrinth but I had never done so myself. So I walked toward it.
“I had read and heard from others that when praying through a labyrinth, things come up within you that you don’t expect. This made no logical since to me. I had walked and prayed many times. What’s the difference? But as I neared the entrance, which at first I could not locate, I found myself not wanting to step in. I wanted to just keep walking and get back to work. It was not that I was afraid of meeting with God or that I was full of pride and self-sufficiency. I was so tired that I had no pride left. I had gotten to a place of having nothing left and at that point I realized a core fear. I was afraid that meeting with God would be less than what I expected, that he might not even be there to meet with me.”
