Centre of attention: Terry Faull’s Thought for the Week
‘Has my life journey been more like a maze or a labyrinth?’
At the bottom of my garden there is a green lane. In one direction it leads to the parish church, which has a curvilinear enclosure that suggests it has been a sacred site since at least Celtic times. In the other direction the lane runs alongside a wood that was established to celebrate the second Christian millennium.
In the centre of the wood, we have planted a small classical labyrinth. This was laid out by an acquaintance who has sometimes described herself as a white witch, because of her belief in earth magic. This ancient shamanistic belief is often associated with the Wheel of the Year and all the aspects of life, birth, death, and the opportunity for rebirth. The pattern for the labyrinth was taken from a rock carving behind the ruins of a mill in a nearby valley.
Labyrinths occur across the ancient world. They have been used, symbolically, as place for a walking meditation and ritual – a journey into the inner life. There are labyrinths in the grounds at Woodbrooke and in the quiet garden next to the Quaker Meeting House in Peterborough. Through membership of the Small Pilgrim Places Network, I know that they can also be found in churchyards in Wales, Yorkshire and elsewhere.
Visitors to our wood sometimes tell me that they have visited ‘the maze’. I explain that in a maze you can sometimes go the wrong way, into a dead-end, and must retrace your steps and choose a different path. Ours is a labyrinth, not a maze. It has a single turning and twisting path which always leads to the centre, and can then be retraced back to where you started.
I will soon be reaching another significant waymark on my journey into being old. I have also transferred my Quaker membership back to the Meeting where I began my journey with the Society of Friends, some fifty-five years ago. Looking back, has my life journey been more like a maze or a labyrinth? Probably the former, truth be told, and I hope there are still twists and turns to come. Yet that centre is essential. At its deepest, a gathered Meeting for Worship can prompt a compass bearing – or perhaps these days a GPS signal – towards it, which my Quaker life then helps me find. I look forward to continuing my journey.
As Advice 2 tells us: ‘Treasure your experience of God, however it comes to you. Remember that Christianity is not a notion but a way.
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