40 Ways My Labyrinth is Like My Life, #10
by Debbonnaire Kovacs
10. Two people can be on the same Path to the same Center, walking in opposite directions.
This was another of my most important insights when I first began to learn about labyrinths. I used to believe you could tell where a person was headed by specific things you saw them doing or not doing. Attending church? I knew better than to think that guaranteed an actual relationship with the God of Life, but it was a good indicator. Avoiding discussions of God or religion? Bad indicator.
By the time I had a labyrinth, I had long since learned that someone who screamed at her kids might actually love the kids and God but have deep inner issues that needed worked out. (I had learned that from painful personal experience, you understand.) I had begun to realize that just about the only thing I can tell by watching someone is whether love is important to them (good indicator, and can be visibly present even in a screamer) or whether they are indifferent (the actual opposite of love, and indifferent people usually don't care enough about anything to scream, but if they do, they show no remorse.) I had learned long before that love is what matters, and that people can do the wrong thing even from a loving heart, or do the "right" thing without love and, as Paul pointed out, it's worthless.
Still, the person who truly desires Love, which is to say, truly desires God (whether they recognize that or not) wants desperately to learn to do the right thing, from a loving heart. And I was now receiving intense counseling from a person to whom God and Love mattered more than anything else. Therefore, God could and did use this counselor to show me the way through my demon-infested dungeons to God's Light, and how to cast out the demons of fear and anger and self-negation on the way.
So as I walked the paths of my new labyrinth and paid attention, I discovered the things I've been writing about here: that you walk away from the center as much as toward it, that there is a true path, and you do have to choose to stay on it and not turn back, and so on. And it came to me—
There you are, struggling along on the Path of Life. You don't really understand all the twists and turns, but God and godly friends are at your side, and you trust that you really are getting closer to the center, which you get tantalizing glimpses of, now and then. You see another person moving along, in precisely the opposite direction you are moving, and you realize (you can't always tell this in life, but sometimes you can) that person is on the same Path of Life, probably with her own struggles and comforters, and she, too, will reach the Center. Possibly before you.
It's a liberating realization! Comforting, too, especially if you are lucky enough to see her "arrive."
It gives you hope
Thank you for your insight. Devotionals don't get a lot of comments here because so many of us seem to enjoy debating the "letter of the law" rather than experiencing our divine relationship and talking about it. We are very much like our spiritual ancestors and contemporary cousins–the Jewish people. Today the rabbis still endlessly debate every nuance of the Talmud and the writings of significant rabbis of the past.
I have read at least one of your books, which I still have. I support your encouragement of the spiritual life and disciplines. I may have read it on your web site, but as I recall you had some accuse you of being "new age." Don't let that discourage you. You are speaking to a large majority of people out there in the secular "spiritual" (post modern) world that our organized church totally ignores. These folk are searching for transcendance but in the wrong places. I wish you had more access to that audience.
Amen and thank you. I do actually have access to that audience–more, actually, than within the church. They are my beloved friends and I write to them and have learned not to fear my other friends, from inside the wall. Criticism like that comes only from fear of a God who is always going around being displeased about something. I feel compassion for those with that fear, because I've had enough fears of my own and know how crippling they can be.
I was really happy to be offered a "voice" at Adventist Today where all of us can be heard. I feel more supported, knowing that I am now surrounded by Adventists who do understand. And my first observation to the editors was that this is a great forum, but needed more spiritual meat. They agreed, and here I am!
I received your email, too, and will respond to it. However, I am in the middle of a huge crisis of my own at the moment. Yesterday, completely without warning, my strong, active, healthy mother was found dead in her home. So as you can imagine, I'm in shock and grief and busy with a million phone calls and details. I ask for the prayers of my AT family at this terrible time. I have never–and I mean this literally, not as the hyperbole of a grieving daughter–met any one human being as consistently close to God as my mother was. She taught me all I know about an infinitely loving, infinitely patient God, and I am not sad for her–only for me! World without Mother?? Unimaginable!!
What a shock to hear about your mother. I remember when I lost my "Mama" and two years ago, "my big sister," so I know how hard it will be to adjust. There is nothing like a mother in our lives.
I am remembering you in prayer. As you said, this will be as a moment to her, but you will suffer the loss. Be comforted in the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Hope.
I will look forward to hearing from you when things are not so harried. It usually feels a bit numb at this point–something we can't really believe.
What an unexpected tragedy. When there is a slower progression facing death it is somewhat easier to adjust but when an apparent lively, healthy woman like your mother is is a double tragedy. My sincere sympathy to you at this time,
Having lost many close family relatives, the suddenness takes one by surprise with no time for all the necessary things that must be done. When my older sister literally dropped dead at 61 in excellent health, one month before her husband was to retire, I must admit it is very different than an elderly, ill relative with a short life expectancy.
Friends and family, if they are near, are worth their weight in gold. When I lost my husband eight years ago, even now there is hardly a memory of the following two weeks. But family took over the gazillions of things that HAD to be done, which was enormous comfort. There is no such time where friends are more priceless.