Walking the Labyrinth

When we were little, my brother and sister and I used to play a board game called “Labyrinth.” Each of us would receive seven cards with objects on them that corresponded to squares on the gameboard. The gameboard contained several fixed pieces and lots of moveable pieces. Each person could alter the labyrinth maze on their turn in order to help their gamepiece get to the objects on their cards. Whoever got to all their objects first won the game.

This is what I think of when I hear the word “labyrinth.” I also think of underground mazes in Ursula LeGuin novels and the Goblet of Fire maze in the fourth Harry Potter book. I do not usually think of the labyrinth as a tool for pilgrimage or as a form of meditation. But the spiritual dimension of the labyrinth is one of its earliest functions.

Yesterday I walked my first meditation labyrinth. It was nothing special with high hedges or magical objects. Rather, it was spray-painted on the grass and covered with leaves. A friend of mine said that he kept losing the edges and kicking the leaves out of the way, meditating on the way that life is often filled with obscuring events as well. I thought it was funny that we were all wandering around in circles on the grass, allowing ourselves to be directed by invisible walls.

The intentions of walking the labyrinth go even deeper than simple metaphors (from the brochure):


“The Labyrinth is an archetype, a divine imprint found in religious traditions in various forms around the world. By walking the labyrinth, we are discovering a long-forgotten mystical tradition. The mysterious winding path that takes us to the center becomes a metaphor for our own spiritual journey.

“Going in, we release the cares and concerns which distract us from our source. The center is a place of prayer and meditation where we receive clarity about our lives. As we walk back out on the same path that brought us in, we are granted the power to act. The walk is a shared journey—an activity which communities can do together to coalesce and unify vision.”


Yesterday my church walked this labyrinth together—all of us at different times, different paces, different ways. Some of us overstepped the lines, lost our way, and walked it four times. Others of us sped through it, or simply walked the picture with our fingers. As I walked it, I thought of this verse:

“Trust the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Straight?! This labyrinth is anything but straight. What does straight mean? That He will give me a straight, leaf-free path without bumps, bruises, and curves? No. He will make sense of my path. He will give it meaning. He will walk it with me. I do not need to understand it. Instead of finding objects inside the labyrinth and taking them home as treasure to win the game, I drop objects along the way, realizing instead that the treasure is walking closer to His heart.

(Link to a previous labyrinth post)