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Thanks very much to Dr. Michael Stevens for transcribing Robert's talk from the worship services today.  He's visiting from the Children's Hospital at West Mead, Sydney, Australia. He has plans to build a labyrinth there in a perfect field next to the hospital. I think more hospitals could use a labyrinth, don't you? 

The meaning of the labyrinth: a short address given by Robert Ferré to the congregation, First Presbyterian Church, Livermore, Sunday, September 18, 2005, during construction of First Presbyterian’s outdoor Chartres labyrinth.

 “The labyrinth has been called a spiritual tool, but what does that mean exactly?  I think that there are several relevant points that will help you to understand the labyrinth.  The first is that in some mysterious way, the labyrinth organizes our experience.  We walk the paths of a certain geometry – they go back and forth - we reach the center, we go back out by the same path, and in some way it organizes us to have an experience that we would not otherwise have in any other way.

             As a spiritual tool, we know that tools are objects that help us go beyond our normal capabilities, and the labyrinth does that with respect to our prayer lives and our spiritual lives. 

 There are two writers that I would like to share with you this morning.  One is Hermann Kern, who wrote a great compendium on labyrinths, and began that with a poem of four lines, which goes like this:

In the labyrinth, you don’t lose yourself.

In the labyrinth, you find yourself. 

In the labyrinth, you don’t encounter the Minotaur.

In the labyrinth, you encounter yourself.

So a labyrinth is not a maze.  A maze is a puzzle and a game in which you get lost.  But in the labyrinth, you get found.  And what do you find there when you go within?  You don’t find some horrible beast, the Minotaur.  What you find is your authentic self.  What you find is proof of the scriptures that say that we were created in God’s image, that we are divine in our essence. 

 The second writer is Pierre Theilard de Chardin, who wrote about seeking truth and seeking God.  You don’t do that by going out and scrambling around the world, which is all appearances, and shallowness, and smoke and mirrors, and illusion.  You find truth, and you find God, by going within, and as you go deeper and deeper into this personal experience, you come to a place that he called the Omega point, and the Omega point is when you discover truth, you find that truth is universal, and applies to everything and everyone.

             So you go in on a personal journey, and what we discover is a universal truth.  This is what I believe happens when we walk the labyrinth.  Now we go into the labyrinth, and we stay in the center for a while, but then we do go back out into our lives, and the same is true with the truth that we discover when we walk the labyrinth.  We use this truth in our lives, in our relationships, in our self-image, and we take this light out into the world to help dispel some of the darkness. 

            The labyrinth journey is a personal one, and each of you will have a different kind of experience as you walk the labyrinth.  But I believe that the labyrinth meets each one of us exactly where we are in our spiritual journey, and helps us to take the next step.  And so, it’s a cumulative effect.  The more you walk the labyrinth, the more steps are revealed to you. 

 Now, this is the labyrinth as a spiritual tool that I described.  But there are many more aspects to the labyrinth – as a healing tool, as a tool for creativity, as a place to have fun and to run and enjoy oneself, so there are many aspects to the labyrinth that we have here.  When you return next week, the labyrinth will be finished, and I hope that you will all take advantage of walking the labyrinth as often as possible, and in finding these various aspects of the labyrinth for yourselves.

Please buy our labyrinth jewelry!

Chuck Hunner, September 20, 2005

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