There are a lot of things in life that you can do and say you’ve done and then move on, never looking back. This is the idea behind a ‘bucket list’ – things you want to point to or accomplish but not necessarily that you want to be deeply engaged with. There are at least an equal number of things in life that are never done, certainly not while you are alive. We just move to increasingly more challenging lessons, or deeper understanding, or understanding from a new perspective. You can visit Paris and say, “done,” never to go back, but from that point on your visit to Paris will have changed something about the way you see everything else in the world; you may never go back but you can never not have gone.

This is the lesson of the labyrinth I want to think about this week: what do we do when we are “done.” You can go on retreat to a place with a physical labyrinth and walk it every day for a week, learn what you can in the experience; you can go to a park and walk one once; you can draw it or color in a picture; you can say, “there, done. I did that thing.” But now what? You have to go home or get up or go to work, walk the dog, clean the cat box, eat dinner. You have to live now; so what do you do with this experience now that you are “done,” now that you have had it.

I think a lot of the zen Buddhist saying: ‘before enlightenment, sweep the floor, make the tea; after enlightenment, sweep the floor, make the tea.’ For the journey of the labyrinth maybe we say, ‘before the walk, get dressed, go to work; after the walk, get dressed, go to work.’ The point here is that we are living in the same world before and after, and it isn’t that we aren’t changed, it is that we are living in the world expressing the change. It’s subtle, it can be hard to see. It can be hard to feel. How do we keep that knowing that comes to us in moments of “enlightenment” or “awareness.” How do we hold the clarity of faith when we are sitting in traffic, over-tired, mopping up a flooded washing machine, paying the bills: the things of every day that feel so far away from the center of peacefulness we sometimes glimpse.

Holding on to this connection, building the connection, staying aware of our spiritual path is not complicated, but it is hard. The reason I wanted to spend so much time, so many weeks exploring the labyrinth is precisely because the simple discipline of that walk is the perfect metaphor for our spiritual lives. It is truly a miraculous gift that we can literally experience at our very feet.

Our life, from first breath to last exhalation is the journey of the labyrinth. We are sometimes closer to the center, sometimes at the center feeling deeply connected, sometimes at the farthest edge feeling entirely alone and like we are getting no where, going no where. Our face is toward the light or it is to our back and we see only dark. Each step changes the perspective, each step is always a moment closer to and further from. As long as we are on this earth we are always walking.

Simply: it is just our life.

The hard part is the discipline of remembering that this is true and taking each step intentionally, not just to check a box and say, “done.” Prayer, meditation, breath work, contemplative reading: all of these are tools we can use to remember, to bring us back to where our feet are on this path, to remind us that we are on a spiritual journey and whoever we are, we are never not within site of the center.

You don’t just pray once, or once a week, get “it” and then walk along with that awareness for the rest of your days. You can’t go to one weekend meditation retreat and fill the tank forever. When you try that, when you think, “did it, done!” you end up feeling untethered and alone in those times that you are further away from the center. It is a discipline to stay connected. Moses, Jesus, the Buddha, spiritual teachers everywhere model this. It’s not complicated, it is hard. You have to engage with the connection everyday; spiritually this is the walking, the step, one at a time that you literally take as you move through a labyrinth. It can be an hour or it can be one minute, but you have to do it, you have to come back to that place that reminds you there is a center to connect to.

My advice is to start with a minute a day; just one minute, everyday. If you don’t already have a practice like this, one minute is the place to start*. Try it for forty days. Then add, change, notice what you need. The change comes slowly; if awareness sometimes comes in a bolt of lightening that’s good, but keep at it: sweep the floor, make the tea, walk the dog. Let however you have been changed be what you take with you in your next step, the subtle changes grow you, holding on to the discipline is what keeps you moving.

*Tips for starting a centering practice*

If you don’t already have something you do every day: pray. meditate, read, it can be hard to figure out where to start. This does not have to be a long commitment everyday, but it does need to be regular to “work.” And you have to give it time which is why I recommend forty days (that’s how long it takes to build and make a habit stick). All of the practice below take 60-90 seconds – we can all fit that in…

• Say the Lord’s Prayer twice (it takes 30 seconds to say once).
• Take three deep breaths and say the short version of the serenity prayer (the long version is 90 seconds)
• If you have an Apple Watch use the meditation timer; start with 8 breaths a minute for one minute (I don’t know if they have this on other watches)
• Get a book of poetry, daily affirmations, prayers, and read one a day. Read a psalm a day, or just a verse or two. Then take three deep breaths.
• Just breathe: using thumb to index finger, then middle finger, then ring finger, etc. take one deep breath at each finger; repeat two to three times.

Whatever you try, keep at it for the forty days. You may eventually find that you want to do something else but you have to stay with one thing for a bit before you can figure out if, how, or why is does or doesn’t work for you.