Marriage Prep: Labyrinth Walking

On the Labyrinth at Bon Secours

Does anyone not know I’m getting married in four weeks? I’m getting married in four weeks and have been writing about it here.

This isn’t my first or even my second marriage, but I know it will be my last one. This time God is at the center; something I knew early on in my relationship with Dan and is affirmed by the Holy Spirit every step of the way.

Earlier this week some of those steps took place along the channels of a labyrinth at the Bon Secours  Spiritual Center, a glimpse of paradise blessedly nearby.

The day was gray, rainy and a bit raw but that didn’t stop us from wandering the grounds and visiting the chapel.  Too cold to walk the labyrinth? That’s what I thought.

Over the years I’ve learned to heed the small still voice within, especially when it gets loud and insistent. I wanted to get into the warm car but kept hearing,  “Walk the labyrinth.” And so I did. So did Dan, although he prefers Centering Prayer. Me? I love labyrinth walks — meditation in motion. Works for me.  And so it did this time.

I never know what will happen during a labyrinth walk.  Some suggest entering with a prayerful intention; mine is always the same and captured in the word “reveal.”  My mind always wanders faster than my feet at first. I’m always surprised by a sense of reaching the center very quickly while, in reality, having a lot more and ever-widening channels to walk.

Dan and I meet on the same outside channel, something that has never happened for me in more than a decade of labyrinth walks, some  on labyrinths clogged with Seekers.  We gently maneuver around one another. I am leaving the center of the labyrinth; he is walking toward it.  It could have been the other way around and during the years ahead I’m sure it will be. Marriage is like that and I thank God that God is at the center of this one.

9 COMMENTS

  1. Meredith, I must be the “one” who didn’t know that you are getting married in four weeks so I followed your link and read many of your posts. I especially liked the video about the music and came very close to “snorting” like Fran!! Thanks for being so open in your sharing.
    May God richly bless your relationship with Dan and keep both of you and your families in God’s tender loving care.

  2. I have been following you in your posts on your pending marriage leading up to this final phase and feel in a strange sense that I and many others have been privileged to have been walking a parallel labyrinth with you and Dan. You have given me lots of laughs and insights .
    Thank you !
    Please can you send me your snail mail address Meredith ? – I would like to send a card to both of you and it will probably take 4 weeks to get there from the UK :-))
    Blessings and lots of love for the final preps- exciting.

    • Thank you for being on the journey with me/us. Clearly no shortage of blog fodder and, as you can tell, I’m marrying a very good-humored generous man of God.
      Address: 3900 North Charles St. #1013, Baltimore, MD 21218. USofA (former colony).

  3. Meredith…I share your love of this labyrinth at Bon Secours Spiritual Center! The labyrinth is like our human relationship with God…closer and further away, the pattern repeated over and over, until death. And guess what? When we truly love and seek God, we can be on the very outer edges of the labyrinth of life and upon our death, He sweeps us right into the center with loving, merciful arms.
    I love your equation of the labyrinth to your relationship with your husband. I counsel many couples on their relationship…(I try to counsel myself and my husband, too! this is much harder!) BSSC has been my little piece of heaven for years. I so enjoy your writing and wish you many blessings in your sacramental covenant to Dan.
    Joy and Blessings to you, Ellen Marie

  4. Beautiful post, Meredith. I am also a labyrinth walker. At High Valley we built a seven-circuit labyrinth from local field stone. I walked it last night by moonlight. When I go on hermitage retreat at Villa St Dominic I walk their labyrinth that is like the one at Chartes. Can’t think of better marriage preparation than walking a labyrinth alone and together with God at the center. I hope someday you will come to High Valley and walk ours.

    • I would love that, Elizabeth. Like painting/writing icons, I’ve walked labyrinths when I hear a deep interior call to do so. I’ve always learned something; always been moved to tears at some point, laughter at others.

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