For at least twenty years, I have enjoyed walking labyrinths. Labyrinths are maze-like structures that have been used as spiritual tools for centuries. For the past seven years, I’ve been walking labyrinths throughout the northeastern United States, and blogging about them. To learn more about labyrinths, check out this page at the Labyrinth Society. To find labyrinths near you, try the Worldwide Labyrinth Locator.

This labyrinth is a 7-circuit classical style, with a grass path and inlaid stone walls.

I actually walked this labyrinth over four months ago, in April 2024. It was at an interesting time. It was during the two weeks after Easter Day, when I took two weeks off from work, partially to travel to Niagara Falls with my family to see a solar eclipse. But during those two weeks, I also took some time to reflect on the very busy and intense Lenten season I’d given myself this year. I had done some serious focus on spirituality during Lent, so intense that I didn’t have the ability to fully process it while it was happening. So I spent time during those two weeks off reflecting and journaling about it.

And finally, at the end of my vacation, I walked the new labyrinth at St. Luke’s Hospital. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to hold onto all the new things I experienced during Lent, so my question was this: How can I keep my resurrection lenses on, going back to work and regular life? (When I walk a labyrinth, I usually ask a question as I enter. Almost always, I receive an answer or some kind of response while walking.)

As I walked, I heard this message: Breathe. In, out. In…out…

There is a flow to life. There is a flow to the universe. This is something I learned during Lent. I studied some of the Psalms during Lent, and in my study of Psalm 19, I discovered that the flow that holds the stars and the nebulas together is the same flow that holds human interactions together – it’s the breath of God in the universe. It’s the Law of God in the universe. God’s Law is that flow.

There is a flow, and I can always access it. Sometimes I experience it consciously, at a high level, and that’s awesome. Sometimes I don’t, but my atoms and molecules are always in tune with it, as the follow God’s law. I can’t access those molecules, but I can access my breath. Perhaps breathing is the connection between the conscious and the unconscious levels of God’s law. After all, breathing is a very peculiar thing: it’s the only function of the human body that’s both voluntary and involuntary. (You can control your breath, but the instant you stop controlling it, it takes over by itself. Fascinating.)

So how can I remember to keep these “resurrection lenses” on? I can breathe, and when I do, I can know that I always have the chance to connect again, if only a little, with the flow. With God’s flow, God’s law. And God’s law is Resurrection. God’s law isn’t life, exactly, as though life is somehow better than death. God’s law is Resurrection, the movement from death to life.

The Flow of the universe, the Law of God, is Resurrection, and it moves through time in the form of breath. At least on the human level, it moves as breath. Death is never the end, because breath is never the end. And after all, the name of God as revealed in scripture, YHWH, is the sound of breath. YH is inhale, WH is exhale. God’s very name is breath, God’s very name is resurrection, over and over again.

So here’s what I can do as I move on from here. I can breathe, and focus on breathing. It’s amazing what breath can sometimes do.