Labyrinth walk

Part of what I love about camp is learning different traditions that each church celebrates or how people find meaning in different ways. I have had discussions about baptism, praise bands, how Vacation Bible School is run, youth group events, music in general, holiday services, lent traditions and I am sure other topics I am forgetting about.

This past weekend, I was part of a confirmation celebration. Using previous schedules, I was responsible for planning what we would do Friday night and Saturday morning. I have been part of confirmation classes before, but we had never taken time away to "wrap things up". I have to say it was a pretty cool experience talking with the three young people about their faith, what they believe, and what they see as their spiritual gifts.

We spent the night at The Pilgrim Center - a camp run by the UCC denomination in Green Lake. It was a great opportunity to see how things are done at a different camp as well. We only ate breakfast there, but for those of you that may be older....they still serve meals family style and we had to set up our own tables as "hop" and "skip".  The lodge we stayed in was a lot like Basile.

One of the special things this camp has is an indoor and outdoor labyrinth. Since we do live in Wisconsin, we needed to use the indoor labyrinth:

As we walked in to the labyrinth, we took a deep breath, said a prayer and slowly started walking the path.
There is no right or wrong way to walk a labyrinth and the 5 of us that walked it Friday night had 5 different experiences. For me, I thought I had something I wanted to contemplate....God had a different idea.
It took us about 45 min to an hour to walk the path in towards the center and then back out. It was actually the quietest I had ever heard this group :-)

I know we don't have a labyrinth at Camp Tamarack (yet :-P ), but we do have great trails to walk and I would encourage you to do a prayer walk. Prepare your heart and mind to be open to what God has to say, stop and pray or just listen when you feel the need. Each experience for each person is different so don't go in to it expecting something, just be open to what happens.

I would love to hear if anyone has a labyrinth experience they would like to share or if you want to share a tradition that is special to you and your church.

I am soooo ready for spring!

Lord, you are my shield, my glory, and my only hope. You alone can lift my head. Psalm 3:3

I am a scientist at heart. I like it when things are black and white and there is an answer. I like it when we can replicate an experiment and come up with the same answer. When there is something wrong with my donkey, I like it when I can make a diagnosis and fix it or figure out the behavior.

Life does not always fit in to a to do list or a standard operating procedure. People, including me, don't always do what they are supposed to. There are thoughts, feelings, emotions, opinions and rubbish that aren't always nice and neat.

Being that I am a scientist, I like data. I have been collecting data on myself for the past 6-7 years on my behavior during he winter months. I am pretty sure I have Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD. Even though I know I build up to this every winter, I still end up feeling very down. This year I tried spending more time outside with my animals each day, worked out as much as I could and kept busy with my jobs and coaching basketball. It helped and postponed the symptoms, but eventually I just get down. It isn't a major down, just enough to derail me and get me off track. That was last week and the low hit on Friday when I couldn't figure out how to work the Sonos so I didn't clean and really didn't do much of anything.

I think our faith goes through seasons. Not the church seasons of Advent, Lent, Epiphany and so on, but how we feel about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have had some pretty significant life events that I had to deal with and I would think I was doing fine until the "Friday" came, the low period and I would just have to give it to God. I mean, really and truly just give it to God to handle. Not give part of it to God and still work on it in my spare time to fix it, but hand it all over and realize it was out of my control.

That is where Psalm 3:3 comes in. The Lord can lift my head, and does, when I am down and need help. I need to get better at realizing it sooner and turning it over. That doesn't mean I crawl under the covers and stay there. It means I look to God each day to help me understand or maybe just help me take the next step and then the next one and so on until that season has passed.

Is there something you need to give to God? Is there something that just doesn't make scientific/logical sense, but you have to deal with it? There is a part of the Lord's prayer I repeat when I just don't understand or need help - "Thy will be done". Thy will, not my will.