The Labyrinth

I haven't said much of anything about myself and my private life in my posts here. That has been intentional. My life over the past couple years has not been especially happy, and generally when I have shared a bit of it I have gotten the impression it felt to them like I was fishing for sympathy. I'm only mentioning this at the moment because I think it is important background information for understanding where a reflection on walking the labyrinth came from. If, in reading the background info, you start to feel like pitying me, go away and pray the Kyrie and remember that God's mercy is always present even in the darkest of times. My times aren't even that dark really. My parents are divorced, and it feels to me like the whole family is shattering. While I successfully earned a bachelors degree from Wabash College in 2004, I have been unable to get respectable employment. I have failed to gain approval to go to seminary on the way to being ordained a priest in the Episcopal Church. I have also failed over the past couple years to obtain any internship which could have helped me better see my place within the church. I am currently taking classes at IUPUI to supplement my BA and enable me to pursue a career in pharmacy, primarily because the employment possibilities are good and the compensation is excellent. Taking classes has been another place for little failures, mostly centered around being chronically late to class. On a more personal note, I have never been succsessful at getting a girlfriend. The most common response seems to be something along the lines that I'm too nice for them to want to risk having a romantic relationship come between us.

The Labyrinth

On entering one can only go straight for a short time. Then the turns begin. Every turn is a failure or a sin. There is no other path to follow than the one in front of one's feet, and the turns come all too often. Every turn is another reminder that one is, in many ways, a failure. Eventually, after more failures than I care to count, one comes to the center. This is the point towards which one has been travelling this whole time. This is where one can sit and meditate on the joy of seeing the Lord. After a while, however, the time comes to leave and one takes to the path again. Every turn is a failure or a sin. After more failures than I care to count, one finally reaches the exit. This is not the end, however, but the beginning again. This is life, to struggle and fail and struggle and sin and occasionally to have a brief glimpse of the glory of the Lord.

Throughout the journey every step and every failure has carried us closer to the goal, although it has seldom been possible to see how this could be so when walking the path. This is the mercy of God, He leads and guides those who desire to be with him through all the struggles and all the failures and all the sins. All the darkness of the journey is nothing compared to the joy and light of seeing the Lord, and eventually there will come a time when we no longer have to take up our cross and continue to walk the path in front of our feet. Also, the darkness and failures, as painful as they can be, in no way lessen the reality that God will bring us to himself if we seek him no matter how many turns we find we have taken.

Jon