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.

I was about halfway through my two-week Christmas vacation, which I was viewing as a retreat, a self-led retreat with the them “Ponder Anew What the Almighty Can Do.” I was deliberately spending time thinking and pondering, taking inspiration from the Virgin Mary, who “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart,” according to Luke.

For the first week of my retreat, I’d been pondering some ideas I’d had for years about God, ideas about what “eternity” means, about whether God’s Law for us and the physical laws of the universe were one and the same, about what it means to follow Christ.

As I approached this labyrinth, and looked out upon the second half of the retreat, I wondered what would be the most helpful thing to do now: continue to ponder the same things, or look for something else? So I entered the labyrinth with this question, directed to God, on my heart:

Where do you want me to ponder now?

So I arrived at St. Jude and the Nativity Episcopal Church in Lafayette Hill, PA. This was a remarkable labyrinth. It was part of a garden of sorts next to the church building, an eclectic area filled with creativity and enthusiasm, as well as Christmas decorations both sacred and secular (some of which had fallen over in the recent winds).

The labyrinth itself seemed almost out of place, so serene against so much light-hearted joy. Yet it was right. I allowed the nutcrackers to welcome me to the path!

It was a 7-circuit medieval (Chartres-style) labyrinth, with dirt path and stone walls. There was still a bit of snow, but the walls were high enough that there was no problem following the path.

My question was so simple, and the answer I perceived was rather simple as well:

You don’t know now what to ponder next, but you’ll know when you see it. Just keep your eyes and your journal open.