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.

My third labyrinth of the day, at Pennington United Methodist Church in Pennington, New Jersey. It’s a fascinating labyrinth, tucked in the corner of the church’s parking lot, abutting a fence to separate the church parking lot from the backyard of neighbors on the next block. It fits here so well, as though this spot were made for it. But it’s on the edge, the very edge of the church property. And I was able to park right next to it – it’s like a drive-by labyrinth.

The design is a seven-circuit classical, slightly modified to fit the space better. The path is mulch, and the walls are Belgian block.

At my first two labyrinths today, I explored my inability to take compliments, and discerned an unhealed part of me that has such a hard time taking them in. (If you haven’t read my last two posts, read them here and here.) It felt like an exposed nerve. It felt like a deeply buried treasure. I wanted to keep exploring this here. I decided on a different sort of question: instead of asking for wisdom or insight, I asked this of God:

Would you please heal me?

I was thinking of the story of Jesus encountering ten people with leprosy, and how they all shouted out to Jesus, “Jesus, master, have mercy on us!” That’s what I asked as I entered the labyrinth: Jesus, master, have mercy on me! Would you please heal me?

The walk in toward the center was quiet. I didn’t say anything, and I didn’t hear anything either. But when I reached the center, I received a vision. It went something like this:

I stand in the center, hearing a neighbor hammering something. He’s working on something, building or fixing. I hear God’s words:

I am healing you.

Be patient.

Watch for growth.

Do you mean right now or lifelong?

Right now is lifelong.

I hear the neighbor tearing something now, cardboard perhaps, and turning on water to wash or rinse something. It is the Baptism of Jesus – water and the tearing of the heavens – happening right now, as I witness it. Is that how God is healing me? So holistic, so whole, so healing.

You are my beloved child.

And through you, I will change the world.

I distributed cards with those words on it to my congregation so many years ago. And I’ve denied it to myself so many times, that gift I proclaim to others. Will you heal me of my distrust of this gift being for me?

I hear now the church organ, playing in counterpoint to the neighbor’s continued work. There are sounds of cars and other neighbors. I am here, in this world, in the world of church and of life. In this world where Jesus is baptized in my midst, allowing me to glimpse the theophany, even here. Jesus wasn’t baptized in heaven, but here. As am I. I am not Christ, but I am his brother. I am another beloved child of God. And through me, God will change the world.

I want to believe that.

I hear an airplane, soaring above the clouds. And a weedwhacker, working in the grass. It’s all connected here – the sky, the ground, the heavens, the earth. And the water, always the water. And this is where I will be healed, here in the liminal space among them all, this liminal space I love so much, where I always feel at home. God is here, and so am I.

And that’s enough words.

I left, feeling hopeful and content.