by Liberty Ford

St. Andrew is my favorite saint. No, not just because he caused the bagpipes I love to skirl forth on his day.  It’s because, while we don’t know a great deal about St. Andrew, we know he embodied a watchful, humble presence worth imitating in our own lives.

I think of him a lot when I walk our labyrinth, trying to still my thoughts and walk in a mindful way. Here was a country-boy fisherman who was so intuitive that he “got” Jesus right away and brought his brother Peter to see and hear. Later, by the Sea of Galilee, he was the one who noticed that a certain little boy had fish and bread – and something about Andrew made that little boy give up his own lunch!

Andrew must have been that person – there’s one in every group – who doesn’t say much but who is fully attuned to his or her surroundings.   Jesus needed him. Yet tradition says that this man humbly refused to be crucified in the same way as his Master and at last was hung on an “X,” now the cross named after him. Jesus needed him.

During my walks, his example nudges me to pay attention as I wind my way to the middle. There’s a meme in labyrinth-talk that goes, “A labyrinth is not a maze, it’s a path. You can’t get lost.”   Well, yes, you can. The first time I walked a labyrinth, it was a paper one we’d made before our permanent one was built. Because I wasn’t paying attention, I got onto the wrong circuit and had to start over. Awkward. One really must look at the floor.

Now I look down when I walk, and as I study the terrazzo floor, I see a design made up of jillions of little specks. Those remind me of the billions of people in the world, and that Christ is to be found in every single one. I think of the people who have been strong presences in my life, the people I love, and the ones I need to discern more lovingly. The brass dividing lines symbolize divisions among us, like countries and denominations and all the other categories that make us feel we belong. But then comes the center, God, in Whom we all belong. I walk back out with a heart somehow both lighter and bigger.

I have to take all the curves and 180s to get to the center. Saint Andrew was more like Barbara Graves’s 4-year-old grandson, who walked briskly to the middle and said, “See? This is much faster!”  May we all approach the throne of grace with such boldness.

 

You are invited to the Advent Retreat from 9:00 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 12. Register online here. During the retreat, and again on Sunday evening at 5:00 p.m. during a special candlelit Taize service, there will be opportunities to walk the labyrinth.