He Is Risen

    I’d like to tell you a story that happened while I was in South Carolina shortly before I moved back to New Hampshire.

    During my five-month stay with family, I had longed to find a quiet, reflective place of beauty with religious overtones, where I could sit, be still, and listen to God. It would be our special place -- alone, together. One day as I was driving through a nearby neighborhood, I noticed an Episcopal church with a large green space. I pulled into the parking lot and saw a secluded area that looked like a garden. It was a labyrinth. Perfect! I could walk the labyrinth and sort out all my thoughts, get clarity, find purpose, and receive healing to move forward in life.

    Perhaps you know that labyrinths were created as a symbolic spiritual pilgrimage, especially meant for those Christians who could not go on an actual pilgrimage. The idea behind the spiritual pilgrimage was to walk by foot, facing trials along the way, to arrive at a holy place that held the relics of a saint. Once you arrived and honored the relics, you would retrace your steps home, expecting a special blessing from that saint in your life.

    I went there weekly and walked, silently, reflectively, waiting for answers as I followed the path, read the inscription at the center, and retraced my steps back to start. I had been doing this for three months when, one day after walking the labyrinth, I woke up to my reality and realized that this walking was an exercise in futility. Of course no answers would come to me simply by walking. I was being silly. A labyrinth isn’t magical. But, then, neither had God shown up for me with any answers as I had hoped.

    I walked away, deciding it had been a nice quiet place, and that this would be my last visit. As I reached my car, the thought came to me to walk the labyrinth one more time. “Why?” I asked. “There’s no point.” But the thought persisted, gently, unyieldingly. So, I turned back to walk it again.

     This time, instead of giving my thoughts to my problems as was my habit, I paid attention to each step, each turn along the path. Toward the center – away from the center -- toward the center – away from the center. Every time I seemed to get close to the center, my path turned away from the center. Back and Forth. Over and Across. Toward and Away. Always coming close, but never arriving. Just like my life.

    Finally, as my mind was numbing out at the endless journey of frustration, I turned a corner and found myself walking into the center. I knew what I would find there: the same empty circle, the same single tile in the center of the floor, and the same non-descript message on that tile written in four languages. I walked the circumference of the center and once again squatted down to read the tile.

     I stooped over the tile in the floor, thinking about the futility of a life that spends half its time striving to reach its goal, a few fleeting moments at its destination, and then the rest of its life walking the same frustrating path in reverse. Futile. Vain. Empty – just like the labyrinth.

     But then very quietly and gently my view shifted. Life isn’t like a labyrinth, I realized. A labyrinth is like life. The ancients in their wisdom created the labyrinth to represent life in all its endless, unexpected twists and turns. Then I thought about the message on the tile. The ancients had chosen that, too, in their wisdom and understanding of life. This message on the tile in the center of this empty destination must mean more than what it had seemed to me.

     I read the message again and contemplated what it meant for this frustrating journey of life: “He is risen.” I read it slowly, He – is – risen.  He - is - risen. In four languages it was written, “He is risen.” And my mind went to the rest of the scripture from which that statement is taken, “He is not here, for he is risen, just as he said. And he is going before you into Galilee. There you will see him.” And I thought of Jesus’ final words before his ascension into heaven, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

     I breathed slowly as the glorious meaning dawned on my heart anew. An old message. A message I’ve known all my life. But, this time in a tangible way that I needed more than ever for this season that I’m in. I stood up and retraced my path away from the center. With each step, at every turn, the Answer I had been seeking -- the Clarity, the Purpose, the Goal, the Center -- was with me. My answer is a Person. The God of the Universe. Who is with me at every step along the journey of life with all its twists and turns.