by Pastor Audrey
Praying outside the lines
July’s prayer walk was wonderful and surprising, as always. Part of the surprise was that I had just shared on the Willow Avenue blog the day before one particular experience of walking the same labyrinth and praying about letting things go. This time, the invitation was quite the opposite.
I had taken my 15-month old daughter with me. In the past few months she’s become an avid walker. We took 2 steps into the labyrinth, maybe 3, and she wanted me to pick her up. Maybe it was the new environment or the noise of riding lawnmower nearby, but she wasn’t into it. So I carried her.
It didn’t take long for me to really feel the strain of carrying her, but I let myself simply experience the physical sensation of weight and burden as an invitation to prayer. Whereas I often journey to the center of a labyrinth asking God to walk with me, mindful of what I need to let go of and to release what I need not carry, on this day I wondered with God about what is right, good, and appropriate to carry. I wondered about burdens that are necessary to shoulder, even as I acknowledged that they do in fact take their toll – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually…
Getting to the center of the labyrinth seemed to take forever. And when we got there, I did something I’ve never done before. I sat down to rest. I didn’t put down some token or symbol, I sat my whole self down on the ground.
And then what happened? My daughter was ready to walk on her own. Not on the path, mind you. But everywhere. Back and forth, to the middle and back and all the way across again – happy and laughing, pointing and chatting, waving to everyone she saw. Another participant said, “that’s jubilant prayer!” So well said. And as I continued to watcher her, I observed, “and prayer outside the lines.”
I don’t even fully know what that means, to pray outside the lines, but I’ve continued to chew on it. I’m not an “outside the lines” kind of person. I like things much more neat and orderly than that. Taking a cue from our Godly Play children’s program, I asked myself a few “wondering questions.” Wondering questions have to be genuine questions, not rhetorical, and definitely not ones to which you already have an/the answer. Here are the wondering questions that came up for me that day:
1. I wonder what God tolerates that humans don’t…
2. I wonder what humans tolerate that God doesn’t…
3. I wonder if there are any “lines” with God, or are the “lines” only of our making…