Labyrinth

Today we went up to Spring Heights -- the Education Center owned by the WV Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Today the Center celebrated its 50th Anniversary.

As we were wandering the grounds, we found this prayer labyrinth. I didn't know it was there -- I found out from my older son that it had been there when we took the youth to Spring Heights for our spring youth retreat. He had walked it then -- I hadn't even noticed it.

Anyway, today I walked my first labyrinth. During this experience, I couldn't help but compare it to our journey in faith.

• My son, who walked to the middle by stepping over the lines and then exited the same way, waited for us outside the path. I'm sure he was watching us walk in circles, wondering why we would do such a thing. Do those who see us walked on our journeys of faith wonder what we are doing?
• Our younger son raced through the labyrinth. He was distracting. Do we face distractions in our journeys? How do we react to them?
• Steve also walked the path, in front of me. Sometimes I was slower than him; other times I was faster. Do we try to gauge our speed on these paths of faith by other people? Is that such a good idea?
• As I walked the labyrinth, I came to realize that I couldn't tell where each turn of the path would lead me. We know the ultimate goal of faith, but we don't know where the path will take us in the short term. We can't predict path ahead of time, as much as we would try.
• As I walked the path, there were times when it seemed that I was walking in the wrong direction, moving away from the goal. As someone who had just written two posts about feeling like I was in a rut, this spoke to me.
• There are stumps in the labyrinth. I imagine that one of their purposes is to allow the walker to take a break. None of us took advantage of them. Do we ignore the chance to rest on our faith journeys?
• The path was longer than we would have expected. It's a long path for a short distance. Do we need to be more patient with our faith journeys? Do we need to realize that the walk we take longer than we think it should?
• I didn't really want to leave the center when I got there. This surprised me. Do we reach a time when we are close to God when we would rather not leave?
• You can't get lost in a labyrinth. It's not a puzzle; it's just a path to a goal. I like the idea that we can't get lost on our faith journeys if we will just trust the designer.
• There were a few times when I stubbed my foot on the rocks (sometimes, I'm just not graceful). We will do that in life, too.

I would like to do something like this again, without the boys (love them as I do). It's a strange thing to do, I think, and even stranger with someone watching. I think it does reveal things about our faith, though.