Sometimes a good idea brought to fruition can turn out just as one hoped, or sometimes it can miss the mark. But every now and then a simple idea blossoms into so much more, and so it was with an idea to make a labyrinth.
In the fall of 2004, the Spiritual Growth team at Westminster Presbyterian Church, in Calgary, began to hold monthly events to offer new ways of experiencing being with the Lord. We began by setting up various centres throughout the church, each providing ways to meditate, pray, and be with God, using either sight, sound, touch or movement.
We knew we wanted to use a labyrinth as our main movement-meditation centre but renting or buying a printed, canvas labyrinth was not an option given our limited budget.
Then we heard of one fellow in our congregation, Jack Shepherd, who knew how to lay out a labyrinth with simple masking tape. He generously offered his services. We watched him quickly measure out the spacing of the rows with mathematical precision, which he said really appealed to his engineering nature. It was wonderful to walk this labyrinth stocking-footed, slowly and methodically in the dimmed light, praying, soul-searching or reflecting on something meaningful.
Now, while we were grateful for this tape-labyrinth, we felt that strips of tape on a carpeted floor were not quite as inspirational as we would have liked and how long could we impose upon Jack?
Inspired by rag rugs, the team decided to braid cloth into lengths, which we could lay out in the same manner as the tape. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but several problems arose. Certain cloths unravelled terribly and soon the braids looked ratty. So each length of cloth w as sewn into tubes, turned right side out, then braided three-together and grommetted at each end to hold the braid fast. One hundred and fifty meters of finished braid required 450 one-meter long tubes of cloth and 300 grommets. Whew! Our great idea had become a bit overwhelming.
Inspired by the lemon-into-lemonade maxim, we decided to make a meditation centre out of it! Braiding can be a movement meditation in itself – it’s repetitive, soothing, and focusing. Each three-strand braid consisted of one light coloured cloth tube, a dark one and one other. This was meant to suggest many spiritual metaphors; for example, the trinity, the struggle between good and evil and oneself, or how God is woven into our daily lives.
And it was at the time of the first braiding centre that the spiritual impact of our labyrinth began to grow bigger than our vision. For instance, the braids themselves told a story about each braider. Some people braided loosely and joyously while others braided tightly and intensely. Some made multiple braids, enjoying the method of meditation and the movement, while others found that making one was sufficient. But the best part came when we were laying the first thirty braids over part of Jack’s tape-labyrinth to see if it would look like we had imagined. We stood back and were instantly moved. We had anticipated the three dimensional aspect and the colourfulness, but what we realized now was that anyone who walked this labyrinth was going to be walking with all of those who had woven it. We worked on the braids at every opportunity, anxious to walk amongst the hearts and hands of so many. Within the year we had completed our labyrinth.
Walking in our labyrinth is walking within a community; a community of others also striving to grow closer to God. Our labyrinth has taught us that God is not only with us as we strive to know Him better, but that He has created others to support us in our spiritual journey. We knew that creating a labyrinth would be a meaningful tool for spiritual exploration but we never dreamed that our labyrinth would become such a metaphor for God’s love.
Submitted January 2007 by the Westminster Presbyterian Church Spirituality Team in Calgary, Alberta: Maureen Ng, Donna Clare, Donna Jones, Judy Griffith, Tom Williams, Lyla Stevens, Elisabeth Pakkhari, Mabel Simpson, Rev. Ian Gray
