Friday's Labyrinth - Not an Official Labyrinth

Finding a different way to walk and pray a labyrinth this morning

So today I didn’t walk an “official” labyrinth but I still walked a labyrinth.  Today was not a day that was going to lend itself to me getting to one of the labyrinths in the area but I decided to make a labyrinth out of the harbor area of Winton Woods.  The trails around the harbor loop back on and around each other and I imagined them to be a bit of an unusual, but big labyrinth.  The other reason is that I didn’t want to leave the harbor area because of this sight that greeted me as I arrived.  (Also notice The Bench there right at the water’s edge!)

This was at about 6:45 and I knew that the next 45+ minutes were going to be a glorious exhibition of the colors of a morning.  But I also saw something in those clouds at that first overlook.  In the clouds I saw what looked like two paths from the rings of a labyrinth.  Do you see them?  Hint - look where the colors transition from orange/yellow to purple blue at about 2:00 if the center of the photo was the center of a clock.  The clouds slowly moved toward the horizon and those paths changed colors as they moved further away.  (Bench again)

So for about 2 miles worth of walking, we kept taking in this glorious light show.  Even Scout expressed her (bow) wow at the beauty of the moment.

At one point the colors in the sky and reflected in the waters  surrounding our “labyrinth” looked like the shape and colors of a comic book explosion.

It was glorious.  And it was a reminder to me that holiness, wonder, awe, and beauty don’t require us to go far.  They can be 10 minutes from our home just like this.  They can be found in the everyday.  In her book, Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human, Cole Arthur Riley writes this prayer about finding beauty in the mundane...

God of every beautiful thing, Make us people of wonder. Show us how to hold on to nuance and vision when our souls become addicted to pain, to the unlovely. It is far easier to see the gloom and decay; so often it sings a louder song. Attune our hearts to the good still stirring in our midst, not that we would give ourselves to toxic positivity or neglect the pain of the world, but that we would be people capable of existing in the tension. Grant us habits of sacred pause. Let us marvel not just at the grand or majestic, but beauty’s name etched into every ordinary moment. Let the mundane swell with a mystery that makes us breathe deeper still. And by this, may we be sustained and kept from despair. Amen.¹

Now, this sunrise was anything but mundane but this wasn’t anywhere exotic (unless you call a residential park near Cincinnati exotic).  In one sense there’s nothing extraordinary about this sunrise because it is simply a combination of the light from the sun not yet above the horizon interacting with clouds at different distances to produce these colors.  Ordinary and everyday.  Or not.  But where it was ordinary or exotic, I needed a morning like this.  A friend shared a quote on her substack that I saw after I got home but resonated so much with me and all that I feel I am carrying.

Because I carry it well, doesn't mean it ain't heavy. (Attribution unknown)

Yeah, I feel that right now.

The other part of the walk this morning is that this is the type of moment I would have texted to Lisa.  When she was in her chemo weeks, I would often have text conversations with her at these early hours because she was up as was I.  She didn’t have the energy to go out (nor was she supposed to at many points in her chemotherapy treatments) and so I would be her eyes on the beauty of the morning.  So many beautiful interactions we had sharing a moment such as these.  Just to do it, I sent one of the photos to her phone number.  I have no idea if it went to someone else who now has that number...and if it did, I pray that it blessed their day.  But yeah it was one of those mornings.  More than a few times during this walk, my left hand moved over to my right forearm to “walk” that labyrinth.

I had a session with my therapist this morning and were talking about these reflections this week and she noted that this is a beautiful way of marking this time and honors Lisa and what she meant to me and so many others.  As she said this, I thought of the many ways that we read of moments being marked in the Hebrew Scriptures.  Places that are given names to remember what took place there.  But especially I love ones like this in Judges 6 when Gideon has an encounter with God.  Judges 6:24 says, “Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it, The LORD is peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.”  To this day it still stands at Ophrah...I don’t think it still stands today but it was a place to mark that moment in Gideon’s life.  Also, I love the name that Gideon gives it - simply Yahweh-Shalom.  I wonder if Gideon returned to that place in the years that followed to reconnect with the calling he received there?  What was the same in that returning?  How was it different?  How long did the altar stay?  Did he repair it if it fell over?

Cole Arthur Riley ends her section on Wonder in Black Liturgies with this blessing:

So may you fall in love again and again with the beautiful. And may that enchantment keep you from the captivity of despair and usher you into dreaming. In your beholding, may you become a faithful protector of every person and piece of creation, including the earth that trembles beneath your feet. Go in peace, to pay attention. May it be so.²

Two more photos of the morning...First something swimming along the surface of the water.  Was it a fish swimming up on the surface?  Something else?  It popped up a few more times along our walk.  Maybe the fish (?) wanted to take in the sunrise as well.

And then this single duck.  I loved the pattern that it left behind it (not unlike our other surface swimmer).

How do you mark moments and people in your life, especially those who are no longer with you?

GPLJ,
Ed

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1. Arthur Riley, Cole. Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (p. 57). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

2. Arthur Riley, Cole. Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Staying Human (p. 61). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.