Tuesday, February 20, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Meet T. S. Eliot on the labyrinth
When you pray, do not babble like the pagans. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Next door to our second favorite grocery store, just a five minute drive from our apartment, we found a labyrinth the other day. At the First Presbyterian Church of Austin, outside, under a few shade trees, it is rarely used, but I plan to use it.
Labyrinthian means helplessly complicated. But walking into a labyrinth like this one, built on the centuries-old example at Chartres Cathedral in France, does not generate hopelessness, but hope. It is not complicated but planned and straightforward. Start at the beginning and work my way into the middle. Sit for a moment (or an hour) in the middle, and then work my way back to the beginning. Which is now the end. God’s calm assurance covers me.
Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and give seed to the one who sows and bread to the one who eats, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.
I need those walks. My mind runs around one thought after another like a monkey on the branches of its favorite tree. I wish I could say that monkey stops during the labyrinth journey. But at least it slows down. I have to concentrate on the path, and I can chant my favorite prayers, breathing deep. The monkey gets a chance to rest.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.
And so on. There are many.
In his Four Quartets T.S. Eliot speaks of life, but also of my labyrinth.
What we call the beginning is often the end
and to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
So.
Time and (yes) space pass by, rinse and repeat. Will I get a glimpse of something solid here? God is patient while I lose myself again and again in thoughts, rescued for a time by the path on which I take a step and then another, searching out something that matters more than my egotistic me.
I sought the Lord and he answered me. Look at him that you may be radiant with joy.
At St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, a block from 1st Pres, an indoor labyrinth sits in the corner of the sanctuary. A brochure, beautifully written, suggests several ideas about how to take the walk.
- Walk your journey. Think about your childhood. Relive some of it, and invite Jesus into the story. Where in my life do I need and want God’s help?
- Walk your sorrow. Can you embrace it and let the love of Christ embrace you?
- Walk your confusion. Ask to become willing to hear God’s voice in new and different ways. When you reach the center, don’t talk to God. Just listen.
- Walk your doubts and fears. Ask God to allow you to see yourself through his eyes, not your own. Take an inventory. What blocks God’s peace from entering your life? As you leave, walk with courage, believing that no matter what you see, God sees farther.
T.S. Eliot’s poem, written near the end of his life, hearkens back once more to his birth:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time …
Quick now, here, now, always –
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
(Isaiah 55, Psalm 34, Matthew 4, Matthew 6)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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