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 an interesting one. Right in the middle of the borough of Weatherly, it sits in a person’s backyard. Someone has used a portion of their property to build a lovely labyrinth, and has graciously offered it for public use! I am so grateful for their generosity. It’s a classical 7-circuit labyrinth, with a crushed stone path and variegated stone walls.

This was the second labyrinth I walked today. (The first was the one at Hunlock Creek, where I pondered how to feed the “good wolf” within me.) As I drove to Weatherly to walk this labyrinth, I was struggling to think of a question. I considered, “What do I need to let go of?” I was still thinking of the wolves, wondering if there was something I had to give up, or let go of, in my life in order to focus more on the good things.

In the end, I decided against that question, and brought this one into the labyrinth instead: How can I nurture curiosity? I remembered that my spiritual director had on several occasions encouraged me to focus on curiosity in my life, how that might be a direction in which I could see the things of God.

I tried to be curious as I walked the labyrinth. The first response I perceived was to be curious about myself. When something’s happening inside me, an emotion or a fear or whatever, instead of just diving into it like I usually do, swimming in the sea of feelings, take a mindful moment to be curious about it.

Second, to be curious about other people. Listen to them. Ask interesting questions. And above all, learn to let go of the constant fear I have that I am bothering people with my very presence. I’m not – and even if I am, that’s not my problem. It’s theirs. (I don’t fully believe that, but I want to. So I’m writing it. Fake it till you make it!) I’m so scared to reach out to anyone, because I just don’t want to bother them. But the truth is, I like it when people reach out to me and ask me something, particularly something about myself or something I’ve created. That’s no bother. And it’s no bother when someone asks me for help either. I have so much trouble remembering that. So I’m going to say it again: I am not bothering other people. And even if I am, that’s their problem, not mine.

It’s funny – I did end up finding an answer to the question I chose not to bring into the labyrinth: What do I need to let go of? I need to let go of the certainty that I’m a bother.

And I wonder – I wonder if I could start asking regular questions on my blog, encouraging responses, and maybe even do something with those responses?