Labyrinth or The Way in is the Way Out.

I've always liked puzzles so it isn't particularly surprising that I've read a little about labyrinths.  They seem to me to be a rather intriguing type of puzzle.  They are not Theseus and the Minotaur type labyrinths, of course.  They are a pattern laid out on the floor or the ground.  In a sense there is no puzzle because it's all laid out in front of you.  No secret to discover.  Just the center.

Nevertheless, I was interested in the idea of the labyrinth being a tool, a means to examine things and perhaps know a little more at the end of the process.  So when I was checking the internet for a local church for Holy Week, I was surprised that a local Lutheran church had a labyrinth and was inviting people to walk during Holy Week.  The idea at that point was, of course, irresistible.

The church was relatively new - about 50 years old - and the labyrinth was a path on a canvas, a copy of the one at Chartres, spread on the floor of a room that looked as though it were for overflow crowds on days like Easter.  A very welcoming lady talked with me a bit about the labyrinth and provided me with some prayers and psalms if I cared to use them as an aid while walking the path.

A labyrinth is a convoluted, complicated circle maze that leads to the center and back out to the entrance.  There were two people walking the labyrinth.  I began walking as well.  Labyrinths do not require you to solve the maze, only to follow it.  It's the simplest thing in the world.  Right?  So I progress slowly, stopping to think, to look at the church banners decorating the walls, to read one of the prayers or one of the psalms.  All very solemn.  All very 'intellectual'.  Then I look up and see that one of the other walkers is on the same section of path but heading toward me.  How could this happen?  I run my eyes quickly and as accurately as I can over the path that I have taken.  What did I do wrong?  Where did I make a misstep?  And what on earth do I do now?

The first thing I did, of course, was to step out of the way and let the lady continue on her path.  Then I tried once again to visually go over the path I had taken up to that point.  Still can't see what went wrong.  Can't figure it out, so I step quickly over to the beginning area and start over.  Going more quickly and still trying to figure it out.  Then it hits me.  The way in is the way out.  The path takes you to the center and then it takes you out of the center and back to the beginning.  No one was wrong.  No one had made a misstep.  "And I am right and you are right and all is right as right can be. "  There is truth in Gilbert and Sullivan and there is truth in the labyrinth.