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FAITH
Labyrinths provide peace, focus, release
BY JOE EARLE
joeearle@reporternewspapers.net
The name itself makes them seem old. Ancient, real
ly. Like something pre-Christian, something that might
be unearthed among long-lost ruins.
But labyrinths — wandering pathways like the one
Greek myths say Daedalus devised to imprison the
monstrous Minotaur — are in the
midst of a modern renewal.
For the last couple of decades,
labyrinths based on a medieval
model have cropped up at church
es, retreats, private homes, even
health-care institutions across the
country and across Georgia and
north metro Atlanta. They’re catch
ing on with the faithful as a way
to momentarily escape the distrac
tions of modern life.
Mary Caroline Cravens of
Buckhead, president of St. Mon
ica’s Guild at the Cathedral of St.
Philip, said she’s found an “amaz
ing release” walking labyrinths.
“You feel refreshed. Rejuvenated.
Lighter. Calmer,” she said. “I think
it’s because you’re leaving whatever burden it was [you
brought in with you] in God’s hands.”
Labyrinths are made to be walked. They are patterns
laid out on the floor or the ground. One of the first
things labyrinth fans say is that the winding pathways
are not mazes. Mazes are puzzles meant to be solved.
They sometimes offer several solutions. A person in a
maze is trying to escape. A labyrinth offers only a single
path. A person in a labyrinth follows that path to the
center, then back out again.
“In a maze, you’re looking for a way out,” said The
Rev. Beth Knowlton, canon for liturgy and prayer at
the Cathedral of St. Philip in At
lanta. “[A labyrinth] is about a loss
of control. If I’m having a crazy
day, it’s a good way to calm down.”
The journey, labyrinth fans say,
is what matters.
“It is a form of meditation,” Cra
vens said. “Whether you’re reading
a poem or just thinking, I think it’s
a form of meditation.”
Recent renewal of interest in lab
yrinths grew from the rediscovery
of one set into the floor at Chartres
Cathedral in France, Knowlton and
others said, and many modern lab
yrinths are based on the Chartres
design. There is some thought laby
rinths might have been used in the
Middle Ages to symbolically mim
ic pilgrimages to Jerusalem or other holy sites at a time
when such religious trips were considered important
signs of faithfulness.
Recent interest in walking labyrinths has a different
intent. It’s about focus.
“I think it gives people a way to quiet themselves,”
Knowlton said. “I think we live in an increasingly busy
The Rev. Beth Knowlton pauses at
the center of the labyrinth inside a
building the Cathedral of St. Philip.
age, when people are frenetic. People are longing for si
lence. The labyrinth .... You just walk it.”
Knowlton sees the labyrinth as a meditation aid.
“It’s about finding your own peace,” she said. “It’s real-
It is a form of meditation.
Whether you’re reading
a poem or just thinking,
I think it’s a form
of meditation.”
- MARY CAROLINE CRAVENS
PRESIDENT OF ST. MONICA’S
GUILD, THE CATHEDRAL OF ST.
PHILIP
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22 | NOV. 15 — NOV.28,2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net
