Offloading.
Labyrinth, movement 1
If you saw my labyrinth video last week, then you know there are three movements to walking the prayer labyrinth: inward, center, and outward. This spiritual practice is a metaphor for life itself. Truly, life is labyrinthine, and today I’d like to talk about the practical significance of this first movement to your life. Even if you never walk an actual labyrinth, this ancient practice has much to teach us about walking into the freedom of the authentic self.
What does it mean for life to be labyrinthine? Perhaps that the path is perplexing and disorienting at times. Maybe that risk and uncertainty are precisely the grand adventure we crave. And perhaps that, even when we feel like we’re moving backward, we are really moving forward. The labyrinth offers us three key pieces of wisdom that I’m going to call offloading, downloading, and uploading; today we’re going to talk about the first.
The movement from the outside of the labyrinth to the center has historically been called “purgation.” This somewhat off-putting word is really about off-loading, letting go, releasing the unnecessary weight we have accumulated. It’s completely human to take on baggage unwittingly, unconsciously. Before we know it, we’re lugging around offenses, disappointments, victimization, negativity…or even pride and willfulness. The call to abundant life is the call to live “freely and lightly,” as Jesus describes so powerfully in Matthew 11. Simply put, we need to travel light.
If there’s a common thread to the baggage we collect, it probably centers around expectations. I’m not sure it’s possible, or even desirable, to off-load all our expectations—of family, of jobs, of friends, of finances, of God. To be in relationship with anything is to hold a story about that thing or person, a story shaped by the past, by culture and belief, and by our own hopes for the future. And we’ve all been in this long enough to have some expectations met, some exceeded, and some dashed. If we can’t (or shouldn’t) eliminate expectations altogether, then maybe it’s about how we hold them, those from the past and those for the future. The contemplative journey offers us rich spiritual resources for both, and I’d like to consider three.
Forgiveness. Situations disappoint us. People let us down. We let ourselves down. All of these call for the grace and courage of forgiveness. Letting people off the hook of our expectations without getting cynical… believing the best when we don’t know people’s motivations… trusting that they are doing their best with what they have to work with, just like we are. And you know what makes forgiveness easier, sacred, and eventually even second nature? Abundance.
Abundance. When we are convinced that everything we truly need is now, and ever will be, fully supplied, it’s a lot easier to be gracious with others. We can let someone break into line, cut into traffic, or take or damage something that belongs to us…when we know that we have enough. Enough time, enough money, enough love, enough trust in God’s goodness. Can I believe that? Can I lean into abundance enough to carry that healing and hopeful presence in the world? When I do, it gives me something very precious, priceless even: the confidence to surrender.
Surrender. Cynthia Bourgeault tells a poignant story of losing a close friend to pancreatic cancer. The more his body withered, the more radiant became his soul until standing there at his bedside, his last murmured words to her were “fall…fearless…into…love.” Fall fearless, into love. Are there any words more compelling, more daunting, more supremely optimistic than those? Is there any freer way to hold our expectations than that?
This is the mystical message of the labyrinth in its first movement: Off-load the dead weight. Hold your expectations freely and lightly. Next week we’ll look at the second movement!
growing the soul
As you step into this new year, what would it look like to travel more lightly? Are there any weights you’re ready to jettison? Do it now. You’ll be so glad you did.
serving the world
Every weight you let fall to the side is not only a gift to your soul but to the larger community. We’re all connected: Your freedom becomes mine, and mine becomes yours. The mystics tell us that we can lighten the load for the entire human family, and I’d like to believe it.
audio meditation
takeaway
Let it go.