When Important Things Break

I love labyrinths. I love walking them, gazing at them, collecting them, even making them out of glue and paper. If it is true how people explain labyrinths, I have been witness to it. A labyrinth is not a maze. One cannot get lost in a labyrinth. A labyrinth’s path will lead you into a place of spiritual understanding. You can linger there, but you cannot stay forever. The path that led you in will lead you out the same way. For me, the lingering part, the center of the labyrinth raises my spiritual consciousness and prods me to learn more about myself.

I call the labyrinth my “sacred path,” a path that can either leave me whole and filled with sacred thoughts or it can leave me broken as I discover things about myself that I did not know before. Most likely, though, the sacred path will move me toward wholeness and joy, and brokenness of spirit. Both! Looking at a part of who I am, and looking towards the person I want to be.

Some people meet God inside a labyrinth. In my experience, God is present with me on my sacred path teaching me what is right and good, what is of the Holy Spirit and what is merely of the world’s evils. Like most people, both good and evil occupy my life and shape my very being. No wonder there is dichotomy in me and I am constantly torn about the way of the Sacred Path.

But this labyrinth is made of stone, stone that is not easily breakable. It is very disconcerting to me that a stone labyrinth would break apart. I see in it the impermanence of all things. I see it in the fleeting existence of all things, in destructive forces that have power over things, and in the fragility of all things. So I see my own fragility. If a stone labyrinth can break, I imagine I can break, too. As always, the labyrinth’s sacred path teaches and leads, embracing my mind throughout a meandering journey on so sacred a path.

What am I trying to say? That I am just as vulnerable as everyone else. My “superior spirituality’ is a kind of farce, an absurdity that convinces me of my power against evil and my penchant for all things good. Hogwash! Like every one of God’s beloveds, I am half & half, half evil and half good in an ever-fluctuating mess of humanity! So sometimes I love my good self and sometimes I see the evil in me I so detest.

Believe me! A trip into a labyrinth, following its sacred path, can change you and help you face off against your personal mess of humanity. But into the labyrinth? Well, it’s definitely worth the price of admission, but make sure you choose a time before you or the labyrinth breaks apart!