This is one of a series of posts about a trip I took to walk labyrinths in July 2022. See this post to see why I refer to these labyrinths as my “Emmaus labyrinths.” Note: the numbering refers not to how many labyrinths I walked on this trip, but to the total number I’ve blogged about so far.
This is a small, but very nice, 5-circuit medieval labyrinth at St. James Presbyterian Church. It’s a grass path with inlaid stone walls. This was my second labyrinth of the day. It was only a short drive here from the first one, where I had spent some time weeding the unkempt labyrinth, and explored thoughts about whether weeding was a metaphor for how I could act in the world: perhaps part of my baptismal calling is to just make the world a little bit better as I walk through it.
When I arrived here, I still had the thought of weeding on my mind, as well as the tangy smell of the weeds on my fingers. So I approached this labyrinth with the question: “What stops me from weeding the world around me sometimes?” Of course, I meant this metaphorically – what stops me from doing my part to make the world a bit better? Certainly I fail to do that on a regular basis.
The answer came pretty quickly: What stops me is fear that I don’t know what I’m doing. Fear that my influence would only make things worse instead of better.
I figured, well, yeah. That’s exactly right. Those things stop me quite a lot. I so often feel like I need to understand everything, and that I have to do everything right.
Ask a simple question, get a simple answer. Time to move on to the next one.
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