Walking the Labyrinth, Travis Scholl. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2014

Summary: The book consists of a series of reflections over the forty days of Lent intermingling thoughts on the gospel of Mark, life, and the daily walking of a labyrinth in the churchyard of a neighborhood church.

Travis Scholl discovers a labyrinth in a churchyard in his neighborhood and determines to walk it over the forty days of Lent. Each day, he reflects on a portion of the gospel of Mark, interweaving these reflections with thoughts about life, and the peculiar type of pilgrimage that is walking the labyrinth.

The book begins with a helpful explanation of the history of labyrinths from the myth of Ariadne’s thread to the appropriation of the idea of walking labyrinths as a Christian practice–a kind of pilgrimage both to the center of one’s life and the center of one’s relationship with God.

The use of Mark’s gospel seems especially appropriate. Jesus seems to be perpetually walking in this gospel–a labyrinthine journey around and around Galilee, into the Decapolis and the regions of Tyre and Sidon, and then on to Jerusalem and the cross, which perhaps not coincidentally we learn forms the center of the labyrinth.

Scholl attempts to walk the labyrinth every day, coming at various times in all kinds of weather from snow to the incipient heat of summer. His reflections concern such things as pilgrimage in the middle of things, the seeming labyrinthine and circular natures of life, the westward facing entrance of the labyrinth, symbolizing both death and the hope of the life to come, the cross at the center of the labyrinth and his own life, and much more.

Labyrinths are often inlaid in the floors of cathedrals.  This is Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. “Labyrinth” by Marlith – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

One of my favorite reflections was on the labyrinth being like the seed of the kingdom — growing day and night. The seed is itself a kind of labyrinth from which life emerges. Another is on the impossibility of keeping the kingdom secret, as secret as our practices might be. Jesus is in seclusion and sought out by the Syrophonecian women who answers his parable or riddle with a parable. She understands the secret of the kingdom that is found in Jesus, and receives her daughter whole.

Perhaps the final reflections tracing the way of the cross are among the best, as is the very last which captures the incredible excitement of the women’s report, “He is risen. He is going ahead of you into Galilee.” The labyrinthine journey of Jesus begins and ends in Galilee, just as one enters and emerges from the labyrinth in the same place.

The author concludes the book with recommendations and resources for those who want to walk the labyrinth and provides a day by day list of his readings in the gospel of Mark. In some ways, it was better that I read his book at a time other than Lent. While it could be helpful to use these reflections during Lent, there is a part of me that is inspired to find my own labyrinth and journal my own reflections, using Scholl’s book not as a devotional, but as a model. We shall see…