Labyrinth of Life

For Wilshire Baptist Church

An interesting thing happened while driving to a labyrinth recently: I was streaming my random playlist on the car radio and all the songs I heard were from before 1978. That means they all harkened to a time when the future was out in front of me and anything was possible.

I was going to walk the labyrinth at St. Jospeh Catholic Church in Richardson on the anniversary of Debra’s death, which comes closely on the heels of my anniversary with LeAnn. Sometimes it’s a mashup of competing emotions, but this year I was mostly aware of the passage of time and all that has happened over all these years of life and how surprising and unexpected some of it has been: all the jobs and coworkers that have come and gone; all the expected life events that didn’t happen such as having children and grandchildren; all the time that has been wasted on trivial matters or just not being in the moment; all the things I’ve wanted to do but haven’t; all the things I’ve done that weren’t planned or expected and that have been amazing and memorable.

Returning home after the walk, I drove past the parking lot of Garland High School where the marching band was rehearsing. Actually, they weren’t rehearsing; they were sitting on the ground in their sections, their instruments lined up in front of them on the pavement, with their heads hanging, perhaps under the increasing weight of the morning heat. I saw them and remembered what those days were like, but rather than empathize, I wanted to roll my window down and shout, “Hey, enjoy this moment while you can. It doesn’t get any easier.”

One of the songs I heard on my playlist was “Goodbye to Love” released by the Carpenters in 1972. It’s a pleasant melody wrapped around a melancholy lyric:

“What lies in the future

Is a mystery to us all

No one can predict the wheel of fortune as it falls

There may come a time when I will see that I’ve been wrong

But for now this is my song

And it’s goodbye to love.”

The song evokes a time and place in my life, but not my actual life experience. I’ve had plenty of love, probably more than my fair share. And the angst I described earlier about wasted time and opportunities? I think that is mostly just the human condition. It seems like we’re rarely satisfied or content, and when things are going well, we grouse about how much better they could be.

We’re all on a journey — a labyrinth of sorts — that will come to an end at some point. If we’re fortunate, we’ll get some extra years — perhaps after we’ve figured out who we really are and what life is all about — to spend in a way that actually makes a difference in the world. It may be something really big, or it may be something small that is no less meaningful in the grand scheme of things, which is another way of saying, in God’s eyes.