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.

On Monday, I was traveling through the Delaware Valley (Pennsylvania) walking labyrinths. My third labyrinth of the day was at The Lord’s New Church in Huntingdon Valley. This church has created a unique labyrinth in a field. The path is grass, and the walls are stones that I assume were found around the property. (Or perhaps they invited volunteers to bring stones from their own homes, maybe?) It has seven circuits, but the design is one I hadn’t encountered before, and one that took me by surprise as I walked.

At the previous labyrinth, through wrestling with a question about freedom and life, I came to the insight that if everything is a gift of grace, then that means that everything we do is practice — it’s all practice through which we can grow and enjoy. Life isn’t a tournament or a game or a challenge; rather, it’s an opportunity to practice. So, to push this insight a little further, I wanted to figure out how to know what I should practice. So my question was How do I know when I’m practicing something right?

The answer I got was, “You feel connected.” I can know I’m practicing the right thing at the time if I feel some kind of connection. That could mean a number of things — either connected with my own deepest self, or connected with others, or connected with God. Or maybe all three.

And I know that feeling of connection. It’s a deep feeling that’s kind of like satisfaction, but not quite. It’s kind of like happiness, but not quite. It’s kind of like confidence, but not quite. It’s somewhere in the middle of those, maybe. I get that feeling almost every time I walk a labyrinth. I get that feeling sometimes while I’m writing, sometimes while preaching, sometimes while visiting a parishioner in crisis, sometimes while playing piano, sometimes while doing genealogy. And it’s when I can recognize that feeling — that’s when I know I’m doing something helpful, something good, something meaningful.

The labyrinth surprised me. I had noticed from the beginning that it wasn’t a typical design. The path led me straight toward the center in the beginning, and then veered off in an unfamiliar pattern around the center, back and forth. After I’d been walking for several minutes, I started wondering when I was going to reach the center. And then suddenly I realized the path was leading me around the perimeter, and I emerged from the path right next to where I’d started! You don’t actually reach the center in this design, and there are two entrances rather than one. I was delighted that there are still surprises for me in labyrinths.

After exiting, I looked closely at the sign posted there. It read, “The point of a maze is to find its center. The point of a labyrinth is to find your center.” It then describes the golden thread that Ariadne gave to Theseus in the myth of the Labyrinth of the Minotaur, saying that “the lessons you learn from your experience depend entirely on what you bring with you into the labyrinth.”

That’s a lesson I internalized long ago. I take labyrinth-walking very seriously, and I also have such faith that I will receive insight or wisdom or presence or something each time I walk. I started to wonder if I could transfer that lesson, that trust, that golden thread, into a select few other things in my life. Could I learn to trust that I would always find some meaning or insight through writing? Could I learn to trust that I would always find some meaning or insight through relationships? What would I find?

I’m curious if you have anything in your life that always seems to provide meaning or insight to you, the way I experience labyrinths. If there is, let me know in the comments!