Peace Three Ways - Place

This past Tuesday, I participated in my 17th funeral this year.  This one was for the grandmother of one of our congregation’s choir members.  The service was at a funeral home about 2 miles down the road from the church where I spoke at my friend Lisa’s funeral in March.   It is also where the congregation built a prayer labyrinth called Lisa’s Labyrinth using the memorial funds collected following her funeral.  I prayed/walked that Labyrinth for the first time a few months ago on the same day I received the news that my friend Lynne had died and a few weeks before my friend Drew died.  I hadn’t walked it since.  Until Tuesday.

After leaving the funeral home, I debated about whether to just head home as I was on the fully other side of Cincinnati and I knew dinner would be waiting at home.  I actually started towards home initially but after going a few blocks, I decided to turn back to pray and walk the labyrinth.  I am grateful I did.  The labyrinth was the same as the last time I was there but it was clear on Tuesday that this place had provided a sense of peace and comfort for many people.   At the entrance to the labyrinth were 15 river rocks and a Sharpie.  The rocks were marked with hearts, notes, and one that looked to be a face drawn with lines that each looked like a tear.  Was there grief still in that place?  Yes.  But there was also peace.  A small stream was running behind the trees, there were birds chirping, and the hollow where the labyrinth sits blocks some of the sound from the nearby busy road.  Walking, I could fully hear the crunch of my dress shoes on the gravel paths and I continued to take in the setting sun off to the west.

It was a beautifully peaceful labyrinth walk while I still held the grief of the losses of this year, especially those marked by the labyrinth now on my arm.  The setting sun spoke to me of the closing of this year that, at times, has just felt like so much and at times, has felt too much.

There’s something about places for us as human beings.  Humans across history and cultures have marked places of significance - some for important moments, some for remembrance, some as places of peace.  In the Bible there are so many places that are marked to remember - Abraham named the place where Isaac was rescued, Jacob where he wrestled the angel and later where Rachel was buried, the Hebrews as they crossed the Jordan, and Gideon’s altar in Judges 6 - just to name a few.   And humans before and after these stories have continued to do the same.

This labyrinth is a place marked for me.  A place of remembrance and a place of peace.

What are places of peace for you?