Eva Marie Everson
… take out the album of your own life and search it for the people and places you have loved and learned from yourself, and for those moments in the past–many of them half-forgotten–through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly, the sacredness of your own journey.[i] ~~Frederick Buechner
If you are wondering how to utilize The Third Path, I suggest an open Bible, your journal, and a pen. For The Path of Silence, record a line of Scripture or a quotation for meditation. I have provided suggested verses for consideration, but you may have something else you’d like to focus on. These help you shut out the noise from outside and center on inner quiet.
The second path, The Path of Memory, allows you to record your thoughts, whether this is about the goings on in your life or something that comes to you during your time on the Path of Silence. And I believe you will find that writing/journaling about these things is helpful. I know it was for me.
In the third path, The Path of Questioning, you will find a question or questions God asked within Scripture. I have provided the story behind the question(s) and underlined sections I hope you will note. After reading, turn the question inward. These questions are not meant to be answered in a single sitting. Some will be, but most won’t. If it takes a week, so be it. A month? That’s fine. There were times I’ve had to walk away from the answers I journaled to God for days before I could return to them; they were that painful. And I knew I needed to be honest. Not only with God, but with myself as well. Therefore, the pain of digging in and answering truthfully was worth it.
I’ve also provided inserted quotes from other works. These quotes are made up of words and phrases, of sentences and paragraphs I hope you will pause long enough to ponder. Write them down. Add them to your journal. As you find quotes in other readings, add those to your journal. This will make the path you journey on with God more personal to you.
Then, walk The Path of Prayer. You may choose to write your prayer or pray them aloud or in a whisper within your spirit. How your pray is completely up to you.
You will have then walked the four paths toward the center of the “prayer labyrinth.” After your time of prayer, return to the silence. Sit with God for a moment and embrace the hush.
Are you ready to begin? Good. Let’s get started.
Walk with me …
As We Near the Opening of the Labyrinth for the First Time . . .
Thunderclaps and lightning flashes are very unlikely. It is well to start small and quietly. No need to tell one’s friends and acquaintances. No need to plan heroic fasts or all-night vigils …prayer is neither to impress other people nor to impress God. It’s not to be taken on with a mentality of success. The goal, in prayer, is to give oneself away.[ii] ~~Emilie Griffin
To have found God, to have experienced him in the intimacy of our being, to have lived even for one hour in the fire of his Trinity and the bliss of his Unity clearly makes us say: “Now I understand. You alone are enough for me.” Carlo Carretto[iii]
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9b
Question 1: “What do you want?” (John 1:38).
The Path of Silence: [He is] the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).
The Path of Memory: Take time to write your thoughts about your daily journey or a memory.
The Path of Questioning: Read John 1:1–39.
The stage had been set. The apostle John tells us clearly in his account of Jesus’ earthly life and ministry that “in the beginning,” the Word existed. The Word was with God. The Word was (and is) God.
The Word made all things. In Him was life … and that life was the light that outshines all darkness, putting darkness where it belongs. That Light—that Life, that Creator, that Being—was and is the Christ.
A man called Yeshua in His time; a man we know by his Greek name, Jesus.
John (the apostle) introduces John (the baptizer), a man related to Jesus through their mothers. There was a man sent from God whose name was John … [iv]
A man … sent from God. Don’t you love that? Isn’t this a beautiful thing, being sent from God? Not merely sent by God … but specifically placed on this earth for a purpose. That purpose was to introduce Jesus’ true identity to a world who knew Him only as the carpenter’s son—a man who had taken His earthly father’s trade and would now take up His heavenly Father’s.
John was a wild man, a man of the desert. But he was also a man with a message who—in spite of how he dressed and his choice in dining—drew people to him. The Jewish people of the first century A.D. were hungry for a savior. Perhaps John was He, they supposed.
“No,” John told them when they asked him outright. “I am not.”[v] He was only preparing the way for the One who would come, he explained. He could baptize them with water as a holy sacrament, but the One who would come would baptize with God’s Holy Spirit.
“I baptize withwater,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”[vi]
John was, he told them, the one crying out in the wilderness. The desert. Not only literally, but metaphorically as well, because those who heard him were parched for truth.
They were also hungry for what God had to say to them. We know this because, even though John was not the Messiah, his message drew people from Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region of the Jordan.[vii] They came to hear the words he had to say and to be baptized by him, to find renewed joy in their walk with God, and to re-inspire hope for the One he said was coming soon.
And then … He showed up.
“Look!” John exclaimed when he spotted Jesus walking toward him. “The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”[viii]
The next day, John returned to Bethany, on the other side of the Jordan, where he had been preaching and baptizing along with two of his disciples—two of the men who followed him faithfully. One of them was a man named Andrew, a Galilean fisherman who was not only the brother of Simon but a man who would become one of the twelve chosen disciples of Jesus.
Andrew was eager. There’s no doubt about that. When Jesus returned on that second day Andrew heard John exclaim, again, that Jesus was the Lamb of God. He and another of John’s followers (possibly John, also a fisherman and one who would also become one of the Twelve) immediately left the baptizer’s fold to walk behind Jesus. Aware that He is being followed, that He is no longer journeying alone, Jesus turns.
Imagine this if you will. You’re walking behind Jesus, who has recently been identified as the Messiah—the Promised One—the Lamb of God—the One who will save the world from its sinful misery. He’s an ordinary-looking man just passing by. Long hair, perhaps. A thick beard, maybe. Intriguing eyes, I feel certain. You’re anxious, hoping He will turn and speak to you. And frightened beyond words that He will.
And then, He does.
“What do you want?” He asks.
***
No, God did not place John on the earth willy-nilly. He specifically sent John to live in a time and place for a purpose. He has done the same with you. But it’s often difficult to know that reason, isn’t it? Maybe that’s why John spent so much time in the wilderness before he began his ministry. He needed time away. Quiet. Silence. A chance to hear from God as to the specifics of His intent. Once that time was over, John was a man with a message … and the mission to share it.
We also have a message, which is easy to say in generalizations. Yes, our message is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and our mission is to share it. But the orders given to John by God were specific—and so are the directions given to me and so are the instructions given to you. But whatis that message? That command or order? And where are we to share it?
John shared his message “as one crying out in the wilderness.” Surely, today’s world feels like the wilderness. Everywhere we turn seems dry and desolate, and it seems to only get worse. We live in a world parched for good news and this is news we have … news we hold inside … news meant to be shared.
Notice how Andrew heard the baptizer exclaim exactly what he needed to hear. Andrew was quite the disciple. He wasted no time in telling others he’d met the Promised One. He also wasted no time in bringing them back to see Him.
Then, they followed Him … just as we follow Him. But now imagine the Creator of the universe looks directly at you and asks, “What do you want?” The same question He asked the first disciples.
What do you want?
“Rabbi,” they called Him. Teacher. And then they answered simply—they wanted to know where He was staying. Why? Why such a simple, yet odd, question to ask the Creator in the middle of the desert? Because wherever He was going, they wanted to go, too. They wanted to be in His presence.
I imagine when He heard their answer, He smiled. Not a grin, mind you. A smile, slow and sweet. One that went right to those amazing eyes of His. “Come,” He said to them then, possibly with a wave of His hand. “And you will see.”
“Come,” He says to you now. “And you will see.”
To enter the labyrinth as a practice, we begin with this question: What do you want? We also begin with the answer Jesus gave. Come and you will see. In your journal, write this one question across the top of a clean page. Now, as if you were one of those walking behind Jesus, answer the question. Remember, you have to be honest here. There’s no holding back. What do you want? What do you hope to glean from your time with Him?
Once you establish what you hope to gain from all this, we will then take the questions in what I hope will be a logical order by looking at the past, then the present, and finally the future. But, for now, we begin with what appears to be the simplest—and yet among the most complicated—question.
Circle toward the labyrinth’s center with The Path of Prayer. Then, sit quietly for a few moments with God before returning to life as you know it.
[i] Buechner, Frederick, The Sacred Journey, 7.
[ii] Griffin, Emilie, Clinging (McCracken Press: New York, 1984), 15.
[iii] From The God Who Comes by Carlo Carretto (found in: A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, The Upper Room, Nashville, TN)15.
[iv] John 1:6
[v] John 1:21
[vi] John 1:26, 27
[vii] Matthew 3:5
[viii] John 1:29
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