FINDING A WAY IN / POLLY INGRAHAM
It wasn’t unusual to get mail from the church where my husband serves as rector, but this particular April letter was out of the ordinary. “The garden tour subcommittee met last week. We have made a number of decisions and have left some up to you. We hope that you will be willing to sell tickets at your garden on the day of the tour.”
With a full-time job, three children and a big dog, I still hadn’t cleaned out my perennial beds, much less invited anyone over to see them. So I looked at my husband with suspicion; he mumbled something like, “Oh that – don’t worry about it; I’ve got it covered.” He always did keep much of his church business to himself, but this time I really wondered what he was up to because it apparently involved our home.
I married my handsome Episcopal priest husband knowing next to nothing about religion. My parents had each come from lapsed Methodist families and had raised my older brothers and me as atheists or at least as non-churchgoers. Rob tried to be patient with my many quizzical looks about the elements of his faith. As a clergy spouse, I brought our kids to church, enjoyed hearing his sermons, got to know lots of nice people, tolerated the boring parts and didn’t sign on to his faith.
I don’t think he told me anything about the labyrinth before he started making it. He just disappeared into our back woods every evening with the tractor to clear brush and then haul rocks. It was a little like the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, with enough food appearing to feed all the masses: he kept finding just the rocks he needed, in a variety of piles that seemed to appear by magic, to make the 12 very large concentric circles. I happened to see a page he’d printed out from a “Chartres Cathedral” website that must have given him the overall design: it wasn’t the usual picture of the famous soaring structure but rather something looking more like coiled up intestines; almost circular – with a distinct center. I began to feel prideful. The innards of Chartres out my kitchen window! As the days went by, I could see that the project was giving him a new zest for life. It combined some of his favorite activities: being alone in the woods (with the dog, aptly named “Rocky” ) while doing something at once physical, spiritual and artistic.
On the evening before the garden tour, he was out there still moving stones. Meanwhile, I fretted about getting a visitor book and maybe a vase of flowers in place for the people who were about to come, wanting us to be presentable for guests. On the day itself, I had to drive our daughter to a lacrosse field an hour away for a summer team practice. Our way of life — one big part religion, another considerable chunk in sports — was highlighted again. Once back home welcoming walkers, I had my mind on the logistics of getting to the state championship baseball game that our high school team was playing that evening, in a different direction from the lacrosse field of the morning. I had no time to go in circles — that was for sure.
I got to thinking about the different kinds of trips people take and what they are seeking. Our new labyrinth provided an obvious metaphor: people who walk it are traveling spiritually, hoping for some kind of renewal without going geographically far at all. While a maze confounds you with different choices, some of which will lead to dead ends, a labyrinth takes you gently around a middle space that you always keep in sight as a goal. And the going back out is just as important as the going in. Depending on the walker’s state of mind, a maze can be exciting and challenging, or just claustrophobic; a labyrinth can be soothing and transforming, or just monotonous.
Our own elder son had not been around to help during construction because of a post-graduation road trip. He and a friend headed south all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, taking our van, and were gone for two weeks. They were doing the opposite of walking through a series of rings – going, as they were, from Point A to Point B every day – but their easy self-confidence when they pulled in the driveway left no doubt that the journey had lifted them up spiritually. They had done it all themselves.
I took my time approaching the labyrinth as if it were a stranger I wasn’t sure how to meet. I walked by it every day with Rocky and appreciated the serenity of the place, but I didn’t see a pressing need to follow the path all the way in. Not comfortable with religious experience, I was nervous that I wouldn’t know how to feel when I reached the important bench. Was I supposed to pray or think major thoughts? If nothing happened, would there be something wrong with me?
Finally, on one mid-summer Sunday morning, I decided it was time. Before he went off to church, my husband left me a Book of Common Prayer, with a bookmark at Psalm 139. At least I would have something to read when I stopped walking. Finally, I could fully appreciate what he had done – it was intricate and huge at the same time. I liked having nothing else to do but look at where to put my feet, and enjoy the cool woods.
When I reached the bench and read the Psalm, about the constancy of God’s presence, I tried not to judge myself as a labyrinth walker. Whoever I already was would just have to do. It felt like enough to have made it into the center to join the part of my husband that he had left for me there.
POLLY INGRAHAM / HOPKINTON, NH
Polly Ingraham breaks her own heart regularly by convincing herself that the qualities she most cherishes in herself — openness, friendliness to a fault — also may be the same ones that make her look ridiculous. Fortunately, her young adult children try to provide her with gentle checks. Currently, caring for a dog who is almost 13, with bright white patches on his otherwise black coat, is bringing her daily reminders of the nearness of death. This is unsettling, so she continues to play a mediocre level of tennis, because on the court you really have to concentrate on hitting that ball now.
Find her on her blog: www.pastorswifeblog.com Instagram: @oheypol and Facebook: www.facebook.com/PolsPanorama