A Labyrinthine Psalm

This week in spiritual formation, we were assigned to walk the labyrinth.  The labyrinth comes out of the Middle Ages when they were used in cathedrals as alternative pilgrimage destinations for those who could not travel to holy places farther away.  Today, labyrinths are used as meditation tools.  There is only one path leading to the center and the same path leads back out again.  This is a picture of the one at Perkins:

One way to engage with the labyrinth as a spiritual practice is to follow a three step model: 

1. As you move toward the center, release the details, stresses and demands of life.
2. When you reach the center, having quieted your mind, enter into a time of meditation and prayer.  Take in whatever it is God might be illuminating.
3. Leave the center.  As you retrace your steps outward, enter into union with God in Christ, seeking to reflect Christ's incarnation in your own engagement with the world. 

I found this practice to be beautiful, beneficial, and fruitful.  I was inspired to write the following psalm after walking the labyrinth.

Father-Mother God,

Sustainer of life and Great Comforter,

I long for Your refreshing

as for life-giving water.

I delight in Your presence

like the taste of honey on my tongue

Your sweetness renews life in my weary bones.

I am captivated by Your grace.

You lavish me with Your presence,

and my heart, my whole being,

is imprisoned with awe.

Yawhweh is Most High!

Let the earth bow down in worship!

May it so be in me this day.

Amen.

An Early Morning Prayer

Steadfast God,

I come before you early this morning,
caught with nature between awake and asleep,
as if both I and the very air I breathe
could use just a little more coffee before the day
is thrust upon us.

And yet, we greet you, our Creator.
In the essence of our living-ness,
may Your name be praised!
In our silence and in our noise,
may Your name be praised!
In our action and in our stillness,
may God, the Sustainer, be praised!

May the presence of the Divine Embrace
carry me into this day,
enlivening my interactions
and sweetening my quiet moments
with the continuing work of the Spirit.

Amen.