Guest commentary by Matt Matthews
“To be quiet, even wordless, in a good place is a better gift than poetry.”
—Wendell Berry (in “This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems”)
I took off my shoes before stepping onto the labyrinth.
I took my fat wallet out of my pocket, my keys, my phone and stuck them in my shoes. I needed to lighten my load to curve around the path drawn on a massive canvas tarp covering the chapel floor. The path led to an empty circle at the center of the wider circle — like a holy flower, such simple, elegant curves, like petals.
Mindy Watts-Ellis, director of children, youth and family ministry at First Presbyterian Church in Champaign, Illinois, created this Spirituality Center. A few activity stations line the walls: a journaling center, a place to pray prayers and to think thoughts. She has made the chapel an oasis. Her hand-made labyrinth is the big, beating heart of the room.
I left some things behind, but I carried some things with me. I didn’t shed my clothes — my dress socks, black suit pants too thin for this climate, shirt, tie. A pastor’s uniform. I carried with me the memory of ashes on my forehead, the gritty feel of sin rubbed into my skin with warm oil that might as well have been the grease of somebody’s blood. I left my wedding ring on. I could have taken off my watch. My late mother gave it to me. I wear it and think of her. Sometimes the crown catches on the edge of my pocket and pops out when I reach for my phone and this heirloom watch stops dead, becoming a dead, tickless weight. My phone keeps perfect time, but I can’t trust that unreliable watch. I laugh about it, and the laughing is the perfect way to remember Mom.
My mask has become part of my face and fits like a muzzle, chafing my ears, steaming my glasses, reminding me of contagion, the distances that separate us, the barriers behind which I often hide, the over 600,000 dead, and counting. I sometimes forget to wear it. I sometimes forget that it’s on.
The pen that Johnnie Ebelein gave me was in my breast pocket. I could have left that in my shoe. She wanted me to have it to sign copies of my first novel. It was her husband’s. I had visited Al at the VA nursing center. I loved making him laugh. His generous smile covered his face and his whole body shook when he laughed. He’d want me to have it, she said. I carried it in my pocket when I preached his funeral. Nothing makes you feel like a novelist like a polished Montblanc.
A few steps into the labyrinth, I realized I should have shed these things. I should have left these encumbrances behind. One pares down for a spiritual journey. One travels light. I learned this by reading the desert fathers and mothers. But even they brought pen and paper and probably some dishes to their hermitage.
And my glasses. I didn’t leave them behind in my shoe. My wife has worn glasses since she was 6 years old. Sometimes she accidentally sleeps with them on. I took my glasses off as I made my way slowly around, because I see well enough without them, but I kept them in my hand should I need to thread some needle or distinguish between a comma and a decimal point. This is important when it comes to negotiating salaries and such.
I took stock of the things I carried onto that canvas labyrinth, the lint in my pockets, the Tim O’Brien story in my head about the things our young soldiers carried in their heavy packs into the jungles of Vietnam. I carry a silver cross. Since I graduated seminary and Jeff Kellam gave it to me, it hangs on the chain around my neck. I never take it off, especially not for TSA agents, and I didn’t take it off for this journey. I am a man burdened by clothes and glasses, the accoutrements of pandemic and convention, history, the weight of my vocation. Even naked, we bear scars. We carry memory as much as it carries us. These things tip the scale.
There’s music piped into hidden speakers, piano music with lots of dissonance. It’s ethereal, but repetitive and it began to grate on me. An image came to mind of a child testing her frustrated motor skills with an eraser rubbing a hole in the page of her homework. Nothing breaks a spiritual vibe like thoughts of homework.
Breathe, I told myself.
Let go.
Transcend.
On one wall, there’s a small fountain trickling over smooth black stones. Cold, grey light illumines the room, but dimmed incandescent bulbs add ambience, warming things up. The weather conspired to make the day particularly somber. A platter of sand and a tiny rake sit on a nearby table; patterns raked into the sand create the likeness of a sea swirling around an archipelago of small stones. I’ve imagined being shipwrecked on an island like that. The rake changes the direction of the current, and the one who sits long enough with the sand and the rake is changed also, which is the point. Or, missing the point, if they fall asleep on the soft chair with the soft music in the dull light of this empty room.
That’s the danger of spiritual things. Not that it leads to sleep, but to the possibility of dreams, a midnight of the soul. Only people who love God wrestle with God in the night. Only they know that special kind of pain. The wrestling begins in their dreams, and soon spills over into the rest of life, commencing in their commute, in the garden, rolling that heavy stone up that terrible hill again and again and again. The spiritual journey leads us to our knees in prayer, in service, in surrender. It’s a sacred journey, a yellow brick road, a stairway to heaven, a path of glowing coals, a bed of nails. The faithful have marked the path by setting their footprints in the concrete. The encouragements are like bread crumbs. Barbara was here. DT+AS=4ever. Drawn hearts are fixed in the concrete. Rainbows. Handprints. Paw prints. Shining suns and shooting stars. No one knows how to spell out danger or warning or woe. So, they draw a cross, which most of us mistake for a simpler version of a smiley face.
Lord have mercy.
At the corners of the canvas tarp are tea candles sitting on round mirrors. The candles aren’t real. A battery makes the light shine, makes the flame flicker. And the green palm fronds aren’t real, either. Just plastic. And the cloth bag with silver coins isn’t real. The dime-store coins are plastic. And the crown of thorns is just for looks, and the Communion chalice is empty. There’s no bread, not even a plastic loaf, on the paten. These road signs remind us of Jesus’ journey to that cross, and the terrible stops along the way.
One’s faith journey often feels unreal, or surreal, or all-too-real. I just followed that canvas path, followed these curved lines carving a path around and around to an empty center. Real spiritual journeys cut into flesh and bone. Tears and blood are involved. I’m getting off easy in sock feet in this warm chapel.
But I’m game for adventure. I work in metaphor and sacrament. And I’m hopeful this journey might yield fruit as journeys are wont to do, relieved that flesh and bone and blood won’t be involved.
Labyrinths were set in stone on cathedral floors. There’s not one in Notre Dame, but there is in Chartres. The faithful have wound themselves into the center, and unwound themselves back out saying prayers along the way, losing themselves, gaining Christ, shedding burdens in their mystic perambulation, following their feet. Some pilgrims have been known to crawl the journey. On hands and knees. Close to the ground. That doesn’t guarantee the journey is more significant, only harder on the lower back — and don’t forget those knees. No matter how you travel, you won’t get lost on a labyrinth. Walking in one direction, you come to the center. Turn around, and follow your steps in the other direction, you find your exit, or entrance, back into the world. It’s not a maze. You can’t get lost.
Unless — you get lost in your thoughts.
I did. I was verily swept away.
I looked down.
I took small steps, following my socks, winding in. I forgot what I was thinking about, but I knew where my feet were. I knew where I was going. I allowed myself to be free from expectations. I was following no liturgy, only my feet, and I trusted the path.
I lost myself in prayer. A Billy Joel lyric slipped into my brain from the song “Allentown” about what’s real: iron and coke and chromium steel. Reality is a big word. An economic word. Joe Friday had no idea what he was asking when he said, “Just the facts, ma’am.” I slipped back into a prayer. Nothing is more real than prayer, and remember I am a professional.
I did not orchestrate these thoughts bouncing around my brain. I simply let them come, and I let them go. Call it being hospitable to unintended thoughts, open to inspiration. I let them wash over me. I was responsible for following my steps, that’s all. That’s real, too. In my prayers I didn’t bother with big words, mostly just, Oh God. Well, sure. I say, Yes, Lord. Yes. Very conversational. The air smells like jasmine and dirt and history and bread and night. It smells familiar. Sometimes you smell things on labyrinths.
Jesus is walking with me. We’re in step. It’s evening. We’re on the way to a garden. He’s quiet, worn. I can’t help him. I can’t carry his load. I don’t want to. I don’t even want to carry my own. I blink. My socks lead the way. I’m following them. It’s morning now. There is bright sun. I’m walking with Jesus again. I’m at the edge of a few pedestrians walking down an empty dirt road. It’s warm and I am delighted to be walking through a warm day. These companions are arguing religion. Jesus is setting them straight, talking about the Old Testament, reminding them of the stories and the stories about the stories. They are enthralled. Jesus is happy. His steps are light, though his companions shuffle as those sore from long days of hard labor. They’re coming home from a crucifixion, they say. His. I won’t let them in on Jesus’ secret. They don’t recognize him, but I do. I’m happy to be walking along. I’m wearing Bermuda shorts and red Nikes over my dress socks. The colors clash. They are clad in Bible clothes, their father’s bathrobes, bad sandals, clearly not Birkenstocks. Our companions will recognize him soon enough in Emmaus, their hearts burning strangely within their chests after he breaks the bread and disappears.
Who knew this labyrinth would take me down this road?
Walking the labyrinth in science fiction novels gets you from one world to the next. Characters jump dimensions. I know the feeling. My socked feet remained firmly on the path, but the scenes changed. I’m on the beach behind Frank Henry’s house. We’re 12 years old. We’re rigging a sailboat, pulling lines through blocks, tying figure 8s, getting ready to shove off into a nice breeze. Blink. I’m in a church. Blink. I’m with my dad and he’s trudging through snow with much of his WWII regiment, hands up, terrified, freezing, Germans with rifles pointing them to the road that will take them to prison camps. Blink. I’m sitting on a pew with my grown sons. Blink. I’m in tears. Blink. Blink. Blink.
It’s a labyrinth, I remind myself. I’m safe.
Mindy was sitting in the hallway to welcome other guests. She was the hall monitor. But I was the only one in our Spirituality Center. I was alone with my Sunday thoughts. Alone with the people crowding through my imagination. I was marching with a defeated army. Walking with Jesus on ancient roads. Feet in the sand pushing a sailboat into the harbor on a windy, warm day. If you follow the steps of the Shaker dance, turning, turning, we come out right. ‘Tis a gift to be simple. I trust this dance. I trust the One who walks with me.
Not all paths are safe, but this one is. This path is safe. I kept walking, keeping my socked feet between the lines marking the path. Time had stopped but my walking had not. You keep moving on a labyrinth. It’s not about speed, but progress. You keep inching forward.
Breathe.
Pray. Be. Listen.
Walk.
MATT MATTHEWS is a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in Champaign, Illinois. He is shopping his second novel, becoming strangely accustomed to an empty nest and enjoys long walks with his wife Rachel McCullough Matthews.
