Sermon

The Streets of Kalamazoo:

A friend of a friend from Massachusetts was visiting Kalamazoo, Michigan on a business trip. He had phoned ahead and booked a hotel. When he got to the town, he got a car to drive to the hotel, but try as he might, he could not find a way to get to the hotel.

He kept passing it by - first, on his left, then on his right. He could not figure out a way to get to the hotel. After several frustrating attempts, he eventually was talked into the hotel entrance - just as a pilot might be talked down by an air traffic controller through bad weather.

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Mazes and labyrinths come in all sorts - physical, mythological, and psychological. The labyrinth is an archetype, a symbol found in ancient cultures around the world, dating back at least 4000 years. A classic labyrinth composed of seven circles has appeared on every continent. During the Middle Ages, an eleven-circuit labyrinth pattern emerged and was designed into the floor stones of many cathedrals in Europe. This pattern was in place in the Cathedral in Chartres, France by the year 1220.

Mazes and labyrinths offer differing perspectives on the path of life. Although the words "maze" and "labyrinth" are sometimes used interchangeably, I'm going to use them to mean different types of paths:

A maze is an unknown place, a region with dead ends and false paths. You may know where you're supposed to go, but you don't know exactly how to get there. So, while a maze offers uncertainty, it also promises excitement and adventure and you must use your mind to get out.

A maze describes life as a complexity of twists and turns, choices, uncertainty, deception, and long meandering diversions, through which the explorer, having entered, had to find his way in order to confront a challenge, like the Minotaur.

A labyrinth, on the other hand, has a defined path from one place to the center. The primary decision is whether to start the journey or not. Walking a labyrinth will not lead a person off the true path, but the journey itself is meant to be challenging. In a physcial labyrinth, a walker usually has the center in view.

Author Uwe Wolff see the labyrinth as an optimistic allegory of Earth and life. He says about labyrinths, "If we take the path, we will learn that the world as a whole is wonderful. We can depend on the basic order of things, and in the end all of us, despite all the vagaries and confusions, will reach our destination."

A labyrinth offers a lesson in thoughtfulness and contemplation and an encouraging message: "Trust in yourself, you will find the way."

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A few thoughts on Jung and psychology:

The psychiatrist, Carl G. Jung, examined circles, mazes, and labyrinths as symbols of the personality; the unconscious, intuition, ego, and so on. Jung called the labyrinth an "archetype of transformation."

Ancient, medieval and modern art, as well as photography, all fascinated him. His favorite mazes were a Finnish stone maze from the Bronze Age, a 19th century British turf maze, and the tile maze on the floor of Chartres Cathedral that could be walked as a symbolic pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

In some of his sketches, Jung diagrammed the human personality/ temperament somewhat like a maze of concentric circles. The outermost circle was an individual's most open, shared realm of his nature. Working inward to a core of sorts led to a greater intimacy. It would seem that according to Jung, the true path to completely "reaching" or "knowing" a person would be to arrive at the individual's core or soul, the center of the labyrinth.

The UU Church of Arlington, VA recently created a large cloth labyrinth and discussed the psychological affects of walking along the path. When walking in a labyrinth, the point is not to use reasoning powers, but rather to turn these off and to go into a "right brain" or imaginative mode. In an open, receptive frame of mind, the walker simply follows the path and experiences a deep, refreshing form of meditation.

Walkers along its sinuous path find they are often deeply affected, such as finding a calmer perspective or having creative fires rekindled; walkers dealing with grief experience peace. After lying dormant for several centuries, this ancient design has making a comeback since the 1990s, as a variety of institutions and individuals re-create it on floors, lawns, and canvas.

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I often like to have things both ways, so rather than describe life as a maze or labyrinth, I would say that sometimes life is like a maze and sometimes it's like a labyrinth.

An important aspect of the Myth of Theseus and Ariadne is the Clew, which was also known as the mitos, or life-line. For the ancient Greeks, the life-line was spun and rolled into a ball by the Fates at birth and unraveled throughout one's life. As a clue or life-line, it is meant as a guide through life's perplexities. At its most basic level, the labyrinth is a metaphor for the journey to the center of your deepest self and back out into the world with a broadened understanding of who you are.

How to use the labyrinth archetype
Deciding what path to get on requires insight and careful thought. We must be willing to reassess our decisions and be willing to admit a mistake and try a different way. Or accept the results of going on a whim.

Persevering through a path even when you know the right way requires strength and endurance. The idea of the mazes and labyrinths is ultimately about choices. What choices do we make? How do we make them? What are the consequences of those choices? Even when we don't feel that we have a choice about the path we're on, we always have the choice to continue or not, how fast to go, and what to do along the way.

Sometimes if we are not thinking clearly, we can create our own mazes, physically or psychologically. We can try to take a short cut only to end up lost, or we can make decisions without thinking and end up having to backtrack in our personal lives or career.

[Hold up tangled twine.] So, even if we have the "clew", if we misuse it, we'll still be lost.

This is what the story from Harold Kushner was getting at. In his book, The Lord is My Shepherd, he was contemplating the meaning of each line of the 23^rd Psalm. This story relates to the line "He Guides me in straight paths for his name's sake". Kushner explained that the Hebrew for "straight path" literally means "roundabout ways that end up in the right direction". He mentions how in the Book of Exodus, the Israelites wandered for 40 years to prepare them for being a free people. We are so often in a hurry, seeking shortcuts, but sometimes shortcuts can lead to a tangled mess. In different parts of our lives, such as learning to drive a car, trying to achieve good health, obtaining an education, grieving over the loss of a loved-one, it is the roundabout path that leads us in the right direction. We need to have faith and patience in the journey.

A book I read a while ago, "What Should I Do With My Life" by Po Bronson, emphasized the circuitous paths many people take to careers that they love. The decisions are often difficult. Numerous examples in the book show that a roundabout path provides insight and lessons that are helpful in later jobs. These roundabout journeys are usually not a waste of time.

He has the great story of the Buddhist monk Za Rinpoche, who was a restless, aimless teenager when he received a letter from the Dalai Llama saying he was the reincarnated soul of an ancient warrior-monk and inviting him to study at a monastery. So, one could look at this and say, oh, how wonderful, you don't need to find your destiny, destiny has literally come knocking at your door. But Rinpoche struggled with this invitation and even when he went to the monastery, he struggled for 4 years to accept his fate. He explained how he was something of a snobby monk, and socialized only with monks of high status. Then, the Dalai Llama sent him to the US with a group to tour and study and speak. He found being in the US very liberating and it made him a better person and a better monk. So, even though he had his path given to him, he still had to struggle to go down the path and find the right way to live the journey.

One thing Rinpoche would talk about is fear and how fear holds us back. He explained that we must recognize and confront the fear, and not be afraid to name the fear.

Po Bronson goes on to discuss some fears that we have relating to careers and lives, such as the fear that our choices are irreversible, and the fear of saying no to something.

A good example of being worried about making the wrong choice comes from Wy'east's recent history. Last year, we were considering moving our services to Pacific Crest Community School, not too far from the Hollywood neighborhood. It was a good fit in many ways, but it wasn't perfect, of course, and some of us were anxious about trying to see how we could make it work. The sanctuary needed some fixing up, but we were also told that it would undergo a major remodeling at some unknown point. Was it worth spending time and resources for this possible move? How long would we be displaced when the room was being renovated, and where would we go in the meantime? There didn't seem to be many other workable spaces for rent so it was a tempting choice, even with these concerns. Then, a roadblock emerged because the school was planning to get a state-subsidized loan, which would prevent them from renting to a religious group.

Recently, I encountered the director of Pacific Crest and she told me about how last winter, they had a serious problem with the roof of the auditorium, which would have been our sanctuary. The roof was damaged (I forget how), and the room became unusable for quite a while until the school could get it repaired. An engineer said he was actually surprised the roof didn't collapse entirely.

This is of course unfortunate for Pacific Crest, but it shows that sometimes, walking away from a difficult decision is the right thing to do. Rather than anxiously trying every which way to make Pacific Crest School work for Wy'east, the wiser move was to see that roadblocks were appearing, and to tell ourselves that Pacific Crest probably wasn't the only option for Wy'east.

We need to have faith that we will get through the maze and end up in a better place. But how can we trust ourselves, and trust "fate" that we will end up in a better place, or at least a good enough place for ourselves and our families? -- By holding on to the clews in our lives.

The Thread of Ariadne is an important concept. The Thread can represent many things, such as our life-line unwinding as time goes on, hopefully to arrive at the "center" of ourselves. And, just as for Theseus, the Thread also shows us the way back, because if we can follow the clews/clues, our lives provide us the tools to make the necessary choices. Sometimes we need help to access the clews/clues, especially when making our way through a confusing place or decision or time in our lives. We cannot do some things by ourselves, such as the businessman in Kalamazoo who needed help to find his hotel.

Our community helps create the path and our community can help us through it. That's why we're here at Wy'east, because life is a maze, and sometimes we need someone to throw us a lifeline. Sometimes we can be the one to throw the lifeline. Because the journey is to the center of our being, we will ultimately find our selves back where we started, but transformed - and better able to share our true selves with the world.

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Possible questions for discussion or for yourself:

a) Do you see your life as more like a maze or more like a labyrinth?

b) Are the walls of your maze or labyrinth fixed by you, by others, by fate? Can the walls that define the path change or be changed?

c) Are others with you on this journey, and do you share the same path with them? Do your paths diverge or come together?

d) Do you think your path will lead you to a better place?

e) If you think of purpose, do you consider an end result you are seeking, or the journey itself?

CLOSING WORDS:

In a labyrinth, one does not lose oneself

In a labyrinth, one finds oneself

In a labyrinth, one does not encounter the Minotaur

In a labyrinth, one encounters oneself