For Wilshire Baptist Church
It’s a quirk of the calendar that the two times I most want to walk the labyrinth are just 11 days apart and during the hottest time of the year. I go to the labyrinth and columbarium at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Richardson because my late wife Debra was a parishioner there and the labyrinth ministry was one of her favorite outlets for prayer and service. I go in late July to mark her passing, and in mid-August to remember her birth and life. It would be better if the dates were reversed, better if they were months apart, and better yet if they were at a cooler time of the year because the labyrinth can be as hot as a frying pan in the summer sun.
I went early Friday morning, the first of those two dates, and it was pleasantly cloudy and cool. I stopped first at the stone on the outer edge of the labyrinth etched with Debra’s name. That was a memorial gift from her friends at the church and the only tangible remembrance of her in North Texas I can visit since she was buried 300 miles away in her hometown of Victoria.
The labyrinth at St. Joseph is a full-size rendition of the famed labyrinth on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France. This one is outdoors in a courtyard, made of gray stone trimmed in green grass, and encircled by a columbarium wall. I seldom go into the labyrinth with a plan, but this time I stood at the entrance and recited the Lord’s Prayer, and then as I began walking, I recited as much as I know of the Rosary, a scripture-based prayer that is meant for repetition. Alone, and with my mouth and nose covered as required even in this sacred space right now, I felt uninhibited and free to pray out loud. And in doing that, my other senses faded and I got to the center of the labyrinth much faster than I expected.
As I stood in the center and looked around, I found myself praying for our community and our world during this pandemic. I prayed for resolution, patience and civility, all of which are lacking. Standing in this place of spiritual focus, I was struck by the knowledge that it is not heaven on earth. Usually there is soft liturgical music floating from speakers around the perimeter, but this time there was no music, leaving only the roar of the rooftop HVAC system. I also noticed more flowers than usual around the wall, but they were plastic or planted in pots with many of them brown from the dry heat – all just fleeting memorials to the departed, like my visit. It’s a reminder that our world is what we make of it, and often that world is mechanized, hard, artificial and neglected.
Looking at the columbarium wall, many of the niches are occupied but others are etched with the surnames of those who have bought places and are waiting to move in and move on to that real heaven. Those of us who are left behind should be doing more than just waiting. We still have to deal with and cope with what is happening in our world today. We still have a lot of living and a lot of work to do.
Those earthly thoughts were in my head as I meandered back through the labyrinth, and as happened going in, I got to the exit much faster than I expected. I don’t know if it was because I was deep in thought or because I unconsciously quickened my pace as the rising sun began to bring the summer heat into the space. Regardless, the morning walk was over and it was time to get back to life.