Walking a Labyrinth

I can’t remember my very first experience walking a labyrinth.  I do know I have walked many in my life, and have always been drawn to this ancient spiritual mystery.  My favorite labyrinths have been outdoors:  ones in the forest, like the one I’ve walked the most in the Adirondacks at the Priory Retreat House (above), and (below) the labyrinth at the edge of Long Island Sound at a convent called Mercy by the Sea. 

I’ve walked indoor labyrinths:  one at the 213th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA in Louisville, Kentucky, and at least once a year during Advent or Lent, I’ve walked the labyrinth at Asbury United Methodist Church in Rochester, NY.  (below)

There are some who have journeyed to far-off places to walk ancient labyrinths, like the most familiar Chartres Cathedral Labyrinth in France.  I’m not sure I will ever get to walk a labyrinth quite elaborate and ancient as that, but the origin of even the simple ones we build in our personal sacred spaces date back 4000 years.  So whether we are in France or in Rochester, NY, walking the labyrinth will bring us to the center of a universal holy place that has been seeded in us all.

Why do people walk the labyrinth?  First, one must understand a labyrinth is not meant to confuse or trick the person who is walking it, (that’s a maze). But rather it is a way that leads to the center.   People will walk to meditate, to relax, to pray, to unburden oneself from worry, or to discern over making a decision on a personal issue.

labyrinth petraglyph - India

I frequently use the labyrinth as a metaphor to life.   It is like walking our life on a path that we know will soon lead to the center.  We will make turns that seem to be going back to where we started, but if we continue walking, we will see we are actually moving forward.  We will come across others walking the labyrinth.  Sometimes we will walk along side people and sometimes they will be either in front or behind us.  We may have to go around them or they may have to go around us.  Sometimes we will part ways and travel in different directions.  We will always come to the center.  There we can rest, think, pray, or be still.  If we want we can sing or dance in the center!  

And always, when we are ready, we can continue the journey until we complete the walk.

" ... you will find God where you are –
if you search with all your heart 
and soul.”
(Deuteronomy 4:29)

A Tribute to Architect, James Johnson

I read an article in the City Newspaper by editor, Mary Anna Towler, about architect James Johnson, who recently passed away.  I have a story about him that I’d like to share.

Sometime in the late 1970’s our family took a cross-country trip from New York to California.  We were driving down from the north rim of the Grand Canyon when we pulled over in a rest stop to take a look around at the amazing vista.  An Air Stream trailer pulled in besides our truck camper with a New York State license. We had not encountered any New Yorkers in several days of our journey and we’re happy to exchange greetings.  A young man, his wife, and children got out and in our conversation said they were from Pittsford. 

“Hey!  We’re from Rochester!”  I exclaimed. 

I asked, “So what do you do in Rochester?” 

He answered he was an architect, at which I asked, “Is there a building I would recognize?” 

He smirked, “You don’t want to know!”

I looked at him and smirked back, “Did you design the Liberty Pole?”

 

He grinned, “Yeah.”

I was elated to meet the guy who created the once infamous Liberty Pole. Like many creative artists, his work was ahead of the popular imagination at that time. He created beautiful sanctuaries and structures that still stand as creative and stunning buildings in Rochester.  

I would never have imagined in my lifetime bumping into James Johnson.  But there we were, on the edge of the Grand Canyon looking out at the vastness of the scene before us, and together fondly smirking about the Liberty Pole.

Photo:  The Big Picture - RIT

Advent Meditation

The online Advent practice for today asks that I “sit in my cell for a half hour and do nothing.”  I can do this. I start by sitting and looking at the tops of the bare trees out the balcony door window that is in my study.  I watch the tips of the branches sway in the wind at the backdrop of an all gray sky.  Misty rain speckles the glass on the door.  I listen to the tinnitus in my right ear.  It is on high pitch but it doesn’t seem to matter.  A few minutes pass. 

Then I hear a voice:  “Your cell phone is ringing.”  I attempt to ignore the proclamation, but the urge to know who was calling seems greater than my time of doing nothing.  I’ll go make a cup of tea.  This will help me do nothing.  I find my cell phone. The call was from an online guidance counselor about my degree program.  It was important and I note what she said on a sheet of paper then go back to my cell.  Maybe I should write a short email to the counselor to say I got her call.  This takes about 20 minutes because I have to search the internet for some information I want to share with her.

 Now my tea is cold, but it’s okay.  I look out at the tree tops again.  Everything is as I left it a half hour ago.  Too bad—I could be done by now, but I’m starting all over.  I observe darker lower clouds passing overhead that look like smoke from a fire.  There was a comment about “fire” in today’s Advent practice.  When on fire,  “stop, drop, and roll… cease the frantic motion that is fanning the flames.” Okay, I can do that. 

Suddenly my spouse, charges in the room and announces, “I’ve finally finished the eulogy!  Want to hear it?”  Why yes… of course I do!  She is a minister and is so good at writing these things.  Another 20 minutes have passed, but I can still do this meditation practice.  I close my door and lock myself in.  It’s 1 p.m.  I stop fanning the flames.  In the distance I hear a fire engine. 

I take two shell peanuts from my breast pocket that I was keeping for the back yard squirrel and eat them.  I put the shells back in my pocket.  I continue to look out the window and try to get the crushed peanuts out from between my teeth with my tongue.  I methodically chew the little bits that are left and swallow them.  There is cold air coming in from around the door sill.  The wind continues to shake the tops of the trees and pull the dark smoky clouds across the sky.  I close my eyes and try to shut it out.  At arm’s reach, I grab the blanket off the rocking chair and drape myself, head to foot. 

Thoughts begin to creep into my mind—Those few grumpy people who are disgruntled with me for one reason or another—Why do they bother me at this very moment?  Send them away. I feel the soreness in my muscles since I’ve been wearing a FitBit and walking and exercising more. Send it away!  I can almost feel the cortisone shot that entered the left knee this week.  Send it away! And that tinnitus is still blaring.  Send it all away.  I still chew on tiny pieces of peanut.  This is a mixed blessing and it keeps my mind from coming up with new thoughts that I will only have to send away. 

“Are you there God?  Don’t you want to say something?”

“No.”

Sometimes all God wants is our presence.  I stay with this thought for a long while.  Then a memory comes to mind of my first time in centering meditation that was also suppose to last a half hour.  It was during my spiritual direction training and one of the other students fell asleep and started snoring.  There were about six of us in the room and I remember opening one eye just a crack to see if there were any reactions.  The snorer was slumped on the couch and those around him were seated upright with tiny grins at their lips.  I remember how ironically the time seemed to pass.  Just like now.

I look at the clock on the computer and its 1:36 p.m.  I made it.  What I report back to the online practice group remains a mystery.  

What it Means to Retire

So you work all your life long doing something… anything… to earn a living because you want to have  shelter for yourself and your family and you want food, transportation, education, entertainment, clothes and underwear… whatever you can afford that brings joy and comfort.

And then one day, after you have devoted 30 years or so to what you called your career, you stop doing it.  You retire. You are older and getting tired.  Maybe your brain is not as quick, and your work is driving you a little crazy.  You decide it’s just time to stop and focus on what’s left for you in the limited time of life you have left.

So one morning you stay in bed and don’t go back to work.  You get up when you feel like it and hang around the kitchen in your pajamas.  You make coffee, read the newspaper, feed the birds and water the plants.  You hang out on Facebook for a while and read your email.  It’s January and it’s really cold outside so you stay inside, take the thermometer off shutdown, put it on 67 degrees and watch a movie on cable TV.

After a few days of this routine, (or maybe it’s not a routine yet), you begin to feel like you have lost something.  It’s not the keys to the car.  It’s the people you used to work with. It’s the chair you sat in for hours at a time, and the desk on which you used to manage your work.  It’s the window you looked out over someone’s garage, and that pesky little brown bat that used to fly around the library and scare the wits out of you.  It’s also a little part of who you used to be, your identity.  We all know we are “not what we do” but there is something missing because you don’t do it anymore.  So you begin to think… well who am I now?

This question may take another few months to answer because things just seem more clear as time goes by.  Or maybe it will take longer to figure out just who you are now, and what your new position in life will be. Maybe you won’t ever have an answer to that question you were asked back in 9^th grade English class…  Who am I?  But it’s okay not knowing because in the long (or short) run, it’s all about the journey… the journey that is your lifetime. 

And that’s what it means to retire.

Loving to the Point of Heartbreak

This time of year I find myself frantic even though I make a conscious effort to remain mindful of what the Christmas season is all about.  "And what is that?" you ask.

I'm inclined to say the season is about what is in our hearts.  Each one of us understands the meaning of Christmas, Hanukkah, Yule, in their own cultural way.  I am Christian, so I understand the season as remembering the birth of Jesus.  I also remember it is the season of solstice and the "coming of the Light."  So these two thoughts are with me, as well as the time of Hanukkah and the miracle of the eight nights of lamps burning.

It is during this season I am often subject to moments that stirs the heart.  Such is the one I had today.

I was returning from a trip to the grocery store to buy bread and butter for a Christmas lunch.  When I drove out of the parking lot on the corner was a small old man, scruffy beard, torn wool cap holding a piece of cardboard out at arm's length with the words, PLEASE I NEED SOME HELP.  

As I waited for the light to turn green, I felt him looking at me and I avoided his stare.  I didn't have change and I was in the far left lane.  So I drove around the corner and got a coffee and bagel because I didn't yet have breakfast.  When I came back out to the street he was still there, so I turned into the parking lot, rolled down the passenger window, and gave him one dollar.  He reached into the car to take it, and he said to me, "Thank you, dear.  Merry Christmas."  And in that moment, my heart began to break.  Here's why . . .

On the seat that he reached over was a bag with a toasted bagel and a cup of hot coffee.  In my pocket was the left over change and a $5 bill.  In my wallet was a $20 bill.  I gave him $1.  As I drove away I repeated to myself the words he spoke, and they caught hard in my chest. I could have easily given him so much more.  I didn't need the food.  I didn't need the $5 and probably would have not suffered much if I gave him the $20.

I have so much and he seemed to have so little and what I gave him was so little.  If my kinder self spoke to my stingy self, I might say, "Well… you took the time to give him something, even if it was just a little."  And I could think of many excuses as to why not to give money to those who might use it toward an addiction.  It's all about judgment.  Who has the right to have more than someone else on this planet?

The lessons we learn this time of year are not for those we give to, but for ourselves.  Perhaps it's not in the quantity of our gift but in the love that comes with the exchange.  And I found myself loving this man, even to the point of heartbreak.

You Can't Be Lost If You Still Hear Traffic

We can’t be lost if we still hear traffic!

That’s what I was told by my beloved as we carelessly strolled off the beaten path of a hike we took while on retreat.  The morning was warm, and moving toward humid.  We decided to revisit a path we had walked a few years back that ran along a creek and eventually emptied into the Great Lake Erie. 

We crossed the highway leaving our hermitage and the monastery behind.  We walked side by side down an asphalt driveway and then turned onto a marked path that took us deeper into the woods, and eventually a long side a stream of flowing water.  We were able to walk along the low flats and see how tree roots , the sediment rock, and years of geological changes had woven intricately into one another.  “Skeeters” scooted across the surface of the creek and tiny minnows kissed out water bubbles, darting in and out of river rocks.

As we walked and observed, we talked the way we do with each other, about life and what we were reading during our retreat stay.  We pointed to a cluster of sediment and remarked how the browns and grays would bleed marvelously together with watercolor paints.  “Look at the sky between the open tree tops!  If God painted something like that would God think it was good or is that extra brush stroke an error?”

As we continued to walk and talk and observe, we moved away from the stream and followed a path labeled “Boy Scout Troop Project,” carved out on a wooden marker that was old and crusted with mold. I wondered as we began to step over broken logs and limbs if the path really still existed.  I was assured by my beloved that as long as we still heard traffic, we were moving in the right direction.  The path narrowed into a foot trail that could have been made by a forest animal, a deer, or woodchuck.

The hike became a struggle and I picked out a good old walking stick that kept me steady as I went.  At one point I began to quote Robert Frost’s, “The Road Not Taken” …two roads diverged in a yellow wood…  it bent down in the undergrowth…  Oh yes, there was undergrowth, and overgrowth, and all kinds of three leafed foliage.  “What does poison ivy look like?”  I asked.  No reply.  We came to a small ravine and agreed upon crossing back over, as that was the direction the traffic was heard.  My walking stick was a blessing as it steadied me over the slick muck and into denser thickets.  I questioned the sound of the traffic.  “Are you sure you hear traffic?”   We stopped and listened.  Yes.  We heard traffic.  It was in the direction of the bramble bushes. 

As we pushed our way through a bramble bush, a branch swung back and caught my arm.  I flinched.  “Ow!”  That hurt!  I was reminded of Meryl Streep in “Out of Africa,” when the lion attacked her oxen and she went after it swinging a bull whip, straight into the brambles and thorn bushes.  How brave she was!  I am not brave, and I do not like these brambles. “Are you sure we are going in the right direction?”  I asked again as mosquitoes buzzed my ear.  

And then I heard a voice in my head say to me, “Do you not trust your Beloved?”  There’s a saying that we are never lost because God knows exactly where we are at all times. 

As we pulled ourselves out of the dense forest and closer to the sound of the traffic, we realized we were indeed just a few feet from the road.  We had to hoist ourselves up a steep ditch, but there we were, out under the open sky, much to our chagrin, only about 100 feet from the monastery on the other side of the road.

We made our way back to the hermitage, kicking off our hiking shoes, chuckling as we sat down on the wooden deck, relieved to be safely back where we started. 

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

--------------------------------------------------

And this is poison ivy:

The God Box

The God Box

In my office I have an oval table on which I have a small altar with the following items: a daily meditation booklet, a covered candle, a ceramic angel figure from my childhood, a postcard of an Orthodox drawing of Mary and Jesus, and a “God box.”  There’s also a tea pot and two small cups made in Hawaii along with my very first “congratulations on retiring” card, but it’s the God box I want to tell you about.

In Anne Lamott’s book “Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers,” she writes:  One modest tool for letting go in prayer that I’ve used for twenty-five years is a God box…  On a note, I write down the name of the person about whom I am so distressed or angry, or describe the situation that is killing me, with which I am so toxically, crazily obsessed, and I fold the note up, stick it in the box and close it.  You might have a brief moment of prayer…”

After many months of distress over a situation of which I had no control over, and of which I lamented endlessly, even lamenting over my lamenting, I came across the chapter in Lamott’s book that told about the God box.  Each morning I enter my office and read a daily meditation and light a candle for people and situations I want to thoughtfully remember throughout the day.  This one situation kept coming up, and unlike the other concerns, I felt I must “fix it” on my own.  There must be something I did that I could undo.  That was the trap.

I decided making a God box was a way of putting the torment aside and giving to God the task of lamentation or whatever the “fix it” might be.  The solution that might manifest could very well be something I didn’t expect or want in a resolution.  I had to trust the Universe, trust God. 

So I found this empty little tea canister, created a label that read “God box,” penned my concern on a small piece of paper, folded it in fours, no… sixes, I’m sure… put it into the box and closed the lid.  There… it is done.  It sits on the altar and each morning I come in and light the candle and read the meditation and think about people and things that are coming in and out of my life.  The God box is like some heavy covenant between me and God in which I assume there will be a successful miracle of sorts sometime before I die.

I must say that I am less sad these days, and don’t lament anymore.  Occasionally a little catch comes to the throat and the eyes get moist but it doesn’t belong to me anymore.  Like the fluff that comes off the Cottonwood trees this time of year, I am amazed at how gently they pass by and disappear into the sky.