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February 21, 2007
This Lenten Journey--Abridging the Labyrinth
The season has come 'round at last. It seemed as though it would never get here and it is a season that I have come to anticipate with all the eagerness and joy that a small child invests in waiting for Christmas. Why? Because it is the time of year when we are all bound by the same discipline and tend to walk in similar ways; as a result it makes that walk so much easier than it otherwise is. It is remarkably difficult to be a lenten person of purpose outside of the season. As it arrives and as I progress through it, I think, if only this could continue, if only this progress, if progress it be, and purpose could be sustained. But no more than a week afterwards it is as though all purpose has vanished.
So, this year, as in many years, the focus is repentance, but more than repentance in the sense of sorrow--repentance in the sense of rethinking the whole journey of life up until now, seeing where one approached and where one was distant. Life is walked in the path of the labyrinth. You can see the center, the place you want to be, but as you walk this single long path, you at first progress steadily toward the center and then you find yourself compelled right back out to the very edge. With time you find the center, but only after much seemingly aimless wandering. But there must be a straighter quicker path. What's to stop me from stepping over the row of stones that mark the barrier between paths and going straight to the center? Only my own reluctance to transgress self-imposed laws and boundaries.
So this season I shall look at what I can do and what we all can do to step past those self-imposed boundaries and move on the straight path of the arrow to the heart of the labyrinth, the center, the place of intimacy and union with God.
Posted by Steven Riddle at February 21, 2007 7:57 AM
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