For Wilshire Baptist Church
It’s a colossal failure and all the world can see it. Walk by or drive by our house and you can see it. In fact, it may show up on Google Satellite View when they update their photos. I’m talking about the winter rye grass I spread over the yard in December.
I’ve done it several times before and it’s worked out beautifully. One year at my old house in Casa Linda we won Yard of the Month in the dead of winter because the rye grass was so beautiful. But that won’t be happening in Garland this year, because instead of having a rich carpet of bright green grass, we have swirls of green on a brown blanket. Think wheat toast with smears of avocado. Ugh.
The problem was that instead of scattering the seed evenly in all directions, the spreader dumped most of the seed in just one direction. I had a sense that it wasn’t working just right but I didn’t know how badly until the grass started coming up. In some areas it looks like I intentionally seeded every other row – like a farmer rotating his crops. And in others there are intersections and crisscrosses where I changed directions.
LeAnn noted that it sort of looks like a labyrinth and maybe I should go out and walk the green paths. I haven’t done that yet, but I have some minor expertise in labyrinths and in fact last fall I led a two-part class at Wilshire on the spiritual discipline of praying the labyrinth. I’d like to believe the handful of people who attended learned a little bit about the practice, including the fact that labyrinths are a representation of our life journey and our deeper spiritual journey. As you walk a labyrinth and pray or meditate there is a constant moving toward and moving away from the center that mimics the ebbs and flows of our lives. Just when you think you’re getting close to the center and the rest that awaits there, you are sent out to the edges again and must trust that the path will take you there. And once you do reach the center and stop to rest and pray, you must go back out on the path and get back to the journey.
The labyrinths I showed in the class and the one we have at Wilshire are symmetrical and well organized and there’s a sort of gentle poetry to the movement as you walk. But looking out at our lawn, I think the rye grass labyrinth also has something to offer. There is no symmetry; it is haphazard, disorganized, crossing over itself. The path is not neat and tidy with a definite beginning and ending; you have to jump on where you can and get off when you must. There is confusion and uncertainty that leads to backtracking and second guessing. It’s not the journey we want; it’s the journey we are given. It is wild like real life.
So, yes, I think I will go out and walk my ugly, unintended labyrinth and meditate on this wild, chaotic journey. I might mow it first because the rye grass is tall and wild compared to the dead lawn around it. But then there is a wildness to the Holy Spirit that can’t be manicured or tamed so maybe I’ll just let it be.