Monday's Prayer Labyrinth
Remembering Lisa
A week from tomorrow, it will be a year since my dear friend Lisa died after her brave and powerful three year fight against cancer. One of the most central things in Lisa’s faith practice was her love of prayer labyrinths. It is in memory of her that I have my only tattoo, a 2” prayer labyrinth on the inside of my right arm and there’s a story that goes along with that.
Today is also a year since one of our church members died - a woman named Bonnie, a woman of amazing faith and courage and strength as she lived decades of her life battling MS. I wrote about these two women at the link just below a year ago in the days after Bonnie died and a few days before Lisa died.
This morning, I was walking with Scout at Rowe Woods and doing my usual Monday prayer/sermon hike and was thinking about these two amazing women. As we walked, I remembered that one of my favorite labyrinths is not far from there at the Jesuit Center in Milford, Ohio. There’s so much I love about this labyrinth in particular. I love its setting by a river with the gentle sounds of the running water. There are huge trees surrounding it and they are filled with the sounds of birds chirping. It is peace.
The labyrinth is also flat and smooth. It isn’t a gravel path or a mulched path. In fact when it has been warmer than it was this morning, I’ve walked it barefoot and I love the feel of the cool stone on a warm day. I also love that there’s one spot where it looks like a leaf fell when the cement was drying and left its imprint.
But here’s what I also experienced as Scout and I walked it (Scout actually mostly wandered around on the long leash until she came and joined me in the center). I noticed how the longest walk of the labyrinth (almost halfway around) is just before you make one of the final turns towards entering the heart of the labyrinth. What I felt in that today was how, even when we may feel furthest away from God and it feels like the path is so so so long, that we are truly never truly far from the heart of God. In what has felt like a very long year with these griefs and a great deal else, I have felt this deep in me - at the same time feeling distant from God but feeling at the same time that God has been right there.
In memory of Lisa, I decided this morning that I am going to try to visit a different labyrinth every day for the next week giving thanks for the light and love she brought to the world and for the way she embodied Jesus’ love and acceptance and grace. I am glad I started with this one.
Two years ago, I put together an interactive labyrinth “walk” experience for during Holy Week and Lisa was gracious enough to be one of those who gave their voices for the readings. You can hear her in these videos about this labyrinth. Her’s is the second voice in the first video and then also in the 2nd video.
2022 Labyrinths - Jesuit Center
I miss you, my friend.
On a lighter note…Scout. She wandered across the paths of the labyrinth until I reached the center and she sat down next to me. We sat there for a while and then when I went to get up to begin my walk out, she just sat there in the middle for almost all of my walk out.
