Cedar Rapids' First Outdoor Labyrinth

This Saturday, June 25, a group of Christ Episcopal Church members will be constructing an outdoor labyrinth on our side lawn, beginning at 8 a.m. The labyrinth will be available for walking as soon as the paint dries. 

"The labyrinth is a spiritual tool serving as a centering activity for the human heart, mind and soul," says Leslee Sandberg, Jubilee Commission chair and Outdoor Labyrinth coordinator. "Usually in the form of a circle, labyrinths have a winding but purposeful path leading from the edge to the center and back to the edge again. They are meant to be walked and in the walking the soul finds healing and wholeness."

Meditation and prayer merge within the labyrinth. Walking the labyrinth is another form of listening to God. In combining the walk with talking to God, the labyrinth opens the soul to a spiritual journey. Like prayer, walking the labyrinth promotes an awareness of where we stand in our lives. Walking the labyrinth clears the mind, presents insight for our spiritual path and urges action.

The labyrinth evokes an experience and ignites the imagination of the seeker. The path of the labyrinth becomes a spiritual tool, expanding our opportunities for an intimate relationship with God. The labyrinth swings open a gate on the pathway of our divine nature, defining a clearer image of God within us.

A labyrinth is often assumed to be the same as a maze. This confusion of understandable since most dictionaries use the word maze interchangeably with labyrinth. However, labyrinths are unicursal: they have only one path going into and out of the center. A maze has many interconnecting paths. Mazes offer blind alleys and cul-de-sacs as part of the design, deliberately disrupting the sensibilities of the human mind.

The labyrinth provides only one path with a purposeful direction, promoting opportunity for insight and guidance, reflection and bearing within the context of a spiritual pilgrimage. Based on the circle, the universal symbol for unity and wholeness, the labyrinth sparks the human imagination with a sense of relationship to the whole and challenges the intuitive part of our nature.

The labyrinth is an archetype, a sacred pattern, used in religious traditions throughout the world, rediscovered after more than 350 years. The labyrinth at Christ Episcopal Church is a replica of that discovered at Chartres Cathedral in France.

"The vision for spiritual growth at Christ Episcopal Church is to enhance our understanding of the Spirit of Creation living and moving within each of us," says Sandberg. "This labyrinth project provides an opportunity to explore our spiritual growth and awareness." Christ Episcopal Church also has an indoor labyrinth.

Members and guests of Christ Episcopal Church have an extraordinary occasion to share the experience of walking the sacred path exhibited within the labyrinth.

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