Sermon: Labyrinth Spirituality

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Labyrinth Spirituality

By Charles Rush

September 21, 2003

[Note: pictures referenced in this sermon were found on the Internet and shown as a PowerPoint presentation during the sermon.]

r earliest written legends hold that labyrinths were modeled after the famed walled city of Troy. There are seven layers of walls at Troy and some of the walls originally had secret tunnels that allowed the passage of soldiers for seruptitious movement. The defense of the city was something of a collapsing retreat, allowing the defending army to trap the enemies who had breached the outer walls and slaughter them within the City gates. Most of our earliest cities were built in patterns that that limited passage in and out of the City gate so that storming from the outside was nigh on impossible.

That may be, but I suspect that the origins of the labyrinth actually lie more deeply in our spiritual subconscious which resonates with patterns reflected in the structure of our universe. I once had a conversation with an archeologist about what hunter gatherer societies did with all of their free time. We happened to be standing in the early evening dusk at Bandaleer in New Mexico and the early stars were already adorning the night sky. He swept his hand majestically across the canopy of the firmament and said ‘this'.

It is difficult indeed for us to imagine just how much attention ancient people paid to the sky, to the rotation of the heavens and the change of the seasons, speculating on what emerging patterns might mean, and what meaning should be attached to abberant astral phenomenon.

One of the earliest symbols in human art and religion is a swirling pattern. We actually have swirls like the one you see here dating back 50,000 years on cliffs in Australia. You can find them etched into stone all across Europe and the steppes.

These are from a Bronze age burial chamber at New Grange in Ireland, probably dating from the 6th century b.c., though this symbol can readily be found carved in other stones from the Neolithic era (10,000-5,000) and earlier.

[slide 1]

We are not entirely sure what these symbols meant, though I would suggest a meaning that they probably had, given their frequency at burial sites. They refer to the changing cycles of the seasons that are reflected in the changing nature of the heavens which are in constant motion around us. They are religious symbols, that have a meaning like unto Ecclesiastes from the bible, where we read, “there is a time for every season under heaven.. a time to be born, a time to die, a time to laugh, and a time to cry”. It was a reminder of our place in a wider evolving universe, the great cycle of life as they refer to it in the Lion King

[slide 2] [side 3]

These patterns stand up remarkably over time, I think, because they speak to us at a sub-conscious level and have been imprinted on our consciousness over many millennia. The spiral comes down to us through Celtic culture, though not only there. But those of you who are Irish will know the variety of ways that they are designed into jewelry, in laid mosaics in our churches and homes. Here is a Celtic cross, thousands of which adorn the countryside of Ireland and Scotland.

[slide 4]

So part of the deep origin of labyrinths comes from a design that effectively resonates with the wider cosmos around us, that evokes for us the cycle of life, the changing nature of the seasons, and spiritually the changing nature of our spiritual lives in the wider cosmos.

[slide 5]

Another dimension of their design, I suspect, comes from the meandering nature of travel. You know that when you travel to older countries than our, invariably the roads are windy, up and down, narrow and confusing. Before the advent of hydraulics and the gasoline engine, back when travel was primarily by foot, this was a basic necessity. Even our travel in the ancient world, was not a straight path, but more of a meandering, with many twists and turns that takes us in a way we would not entirely have predicted and could not anticipate. Certainly this is true of our spiritual lives, which is why the labyrinth is well suited for us to explore our interior psyches so well.

So, you can find labyrinths all across northern Europe. These come mainly from Germany, but they are also to be found, particularly in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Holland, and in all the Nordic countries

[slide 6]

They are outdoors, sometimes cut into a hill side as this one.

[slide7]

Sometimes they cut into the hedge or mown into the grass or heather like this one

[slide 8]

Sometimes they are constructed out of stone, like this one in Finland.

[slide 9]

Or they have been ornamentally defined with crushed gravel, an upgrade of the older ideas

This one features in laid stone, quite beautiful

[slide 10]

[slide 11]

This one is typical of the English countryside where they often cut them out of hedge.

[slide 12]

I include this because this is what you often actually encounter when you go looking for an original labyrinth, something quite overgrown, hard to follow, that takes imagination to see it in its lived life.

[slide 13]

By contrast this one is quite cleaned up and maintained.

[slide 14]

This would have been quite near something original, a stone path layout in the woods, a holy spot our ancestors made pilgrimage to in order to pray and worship.

[slide 15]

Here is one that is in stone, more of a permanent fixture

[slide 16]

Here is a figure of a labyrinth cut into an early coin, this one from the Greek island of Knossos. I believe this coin dates from 400 b.c.

[slide 17]

This figure is not in great focus, but it shows the pattern of a labyrinth cut into an ornamental piece

[slide 18]

This is another Greek coin with another form of labyrinth which is interesting.

[slide 19]

Again, a figure probably of religious significance that is holding a labyrinth

[slide 20]

Labyrinths in their classical design have geometric structure which is illustrated here. And we have good reason to believe that they also contain numerological significance, which I do not have time to describe, but that would have been typical of the way people thought about the world at that time.

[slide 21]

Here we see the unfolding nature of a labyrinth as it develops from beginning to finished product

[slide 22]

This is a classical labyrinth

[slide 23]

But there are also other forms

[slide 24]

Here we see yet another one

[slide 25]

Labyrinths became more complex over time. This pattern could be from an earlier era, we took it from a labyrinth designed in the Middle ages and you can see it is more involved and complex

[slide 26]

Likewise this one is dazzlingly complex

[slide 27]

This one, some of you will recognize. It is the pattern of the labyrinth at the Cathedral in Chartres France.

[slide 28]

Not all of them are circular. This one is from Rome, square, much easier to construct. Romans, were a society of soldiers and engineers. Here is shows dramatically. Very practical.

[slide 29]

This is a wonderful complex labyrinth

[slide 30]

Here is another medieval pattern

[slide 31]

Yet another

[slide 32]

Here is the Cathedral at Chartres, taken at night with the labyrinth lit up with candle light. Beautiful and inviting sacred space isn't it?

[slide 33]

This is a larger one developed outdoors by torches in Germany

[slide 34]

This is the design for our labyrinth in one of its original designs

[slide 35]

It is also replicated in a plaza in Munich, Germany. In case you are ever visiting there, you may want to drop by and see a cousin of ours.

[slide 36]

Ours was taken from the Cathedral at Amiens in France, the tallest Cathedral in France and quite an impressive building

[slide 37]

[slide 38, 39, 40]

And here [slide 41] we see people walking the labyrinth at Amiens.

You may wonder about the spirituality of the labyrinth. The fact that they are in these great cathedrals represents a fusion of traditions in the middle ages. Our Celtic ancestors took an ancient spiritual discipline and filled it with Christian ideas and brought together the best of their spiritual traditions with a wonderful new tool for spiritual reflection.

Labyrinths are [replicate slide 27] about the journey into ourselves into our center and the way out. Christians saw this and said, ‘we recognize this; it is about the journey into the heart of who we are, finding ourselves, dying and being reborn into a new person filled with the Spirit.

At the Cathedral at Chartres, death and rebirth is rather dramatically portrayed. When you follow the labyrinth, your face quite naturally looks to the pattern in the stone on the ground as you wend this way and that. When you reach the center of the labyrinth, you naturally have a moment where you stop, a moment of introspection. Perhaps you are aware of what you are carrying around with you at that moment. Perhaps you are aware of yourself, who you really are in that moment.

And you naturally want to lift your head out of that introspection in a primordial hope of being filled. The architects at Chartres placed rosetta windows like ours, only much bigger at both ends of the Cathedral, so that no matter which end you turn towards, when you raise your eyes and look up in hope, the first thing you see is a depiction, in stained glass of the Christ, our hope and also the source of spiritual strength to meet whatever problem you may need to resolve at the moment.

So, you may be thinking, why would you walk a labyrinth. I have a wonderful quote send to me from St. Augustine that says “Solvitur ambulando”- It is solved by walking.

It is a great insight, spiritually speaking. Think for a moment about critical junctures in your life. You know that you love this man but is he really the one you should marry. Oh boy that is a big one. You love your wife, you want to have children, but is this the time. She really wants to but can you afford it? Are you ready to take on this now? You are trying to figure out which job to take, whether you should stay where you are, endure the misery that you know, or do something different, not entirely sure that it will work out, that it will pay out….

We have so many defining moments like this in our lives, critical junctures in our lives. We have a really important problem to solve. We need to know what is in here, inside of ourselves, what will bring us fulfillment. Whether or not we actually voice it or not, we are really asking God what we are supposed to do with our lives.

And the funny thing is, when I ask people to tell me the story of their lives, it is these spiritual junctures that they talk about. Because they set you in a direction and you wouldn't be here today if you hadn't made a commitment to him, warts and all, and grown together.

Now what do you do when you reach these impasses? You consult friends, sure. You ask your Mom, maybe. Then you are thinking inside yourself and you can't entirely turn it off. You are just thinking, thinking, thinking. You wake up in the middle of the night and you are still thinking. And what do you do? You pace around the apartment. Or maybe you take the dog outside and you walk and you think it through with yourself.

Labyrinths guide us on that interior journey. They structure our walk and they do it in a wonderful way. You are moving towards the solution but it is not a straight forward march is it? In fact, right off the bat it looks like you are moving away from the center of the problem and usually you are. [Move cursor around the labyrinth at this point] Then you appear to be making progress towards the center, only it is not as much progress as you think you are making. Our inner spiritual wrestling is like that. It twists and turns, we consider the situation from this angle, then that. We are confident, then we are anxious and afraid.

Then there comes a point, where you are not even entirely sure that you are making any progress at all. There has been a great deal of movement. You have consulted everyone you know and you don't feel any surer than when you first started out. And somewhere out there, when you are on the edge, some how, some way, you just suddenly find your way to the center and there you are. And you know. You get the insight you need and even though it is not always a ‘for sure'/ ‘aha' moment. You know and you stay there for a bit and then you find your way out and you go on.

The creative process is like that too. You are trying to find the idea for an article. You are trying to figure out what to say in a sermon. You are trying to develop a new market that hasn't been developed yet. You are trying to take a good idea from the drawing board to forming a company and making it go. You go through this process, often it involves walking as well. Getting closer to where you need to go, doing research that turns out to be useless, talking to different people, some helpful, some not. Finally you get to the center and ….

My hope is that some way, some how, we can open this space so that you can walk it when you need it, even in the middle of the night. Meditation can help you to center yourself.

Finally, you may be wondering why you need this pattern to meditate? Like anything else, try it and see. It might suit you and it might not. What we know is that there is a connection between our outer movement and accessing inner parts of our selves that are not normally accessed.

At the moment, there are a number of studies underway to document exactly how a variety of techniques of movement help children with various learning disabilities to access different regions of their brains and actually aid them in the development of new forms of connection in the mind to compensate for their disability and cope with a new manner processing.

Similarly there are a variety of these physical techniques in meditation that you know from Yoga in the Hindu tradition, deep meditation from the Buddhist tradition, or Tai Chi from loosely the Taoist tradition. Each of them are things we have learned to access a different part of our soul. The Labyrinth is another technique that allows us to have engage a different part of ourselves and to the degree that we are in a fuller expression of our total selves, we can be more open to God.

Deitrich Bonhoffer used to say that the Church is a combination of religion and revelation. Religion are the practices that we use to reach up to God and Revelation is when God comes to meet us. The labyrinth is a religious tool for devotion, our reaching into ourselves and out to God. And sometimes we have the experience of having been known, of having been heard, of being filled with acceptance, of knowing in our souls, of having been loved, of getting what we need to figure out the next leg of the journey. We need both.

Amen.