Prayer Labyrinth
Ask, and it will be given to you, seek
and you will find; knock, and it will
be opened to you. Matthew 7:7
Chapel Hill United Methodist Church's Prayer Labyrinth
The prayer labyrinth can represent our spiritual life journey. Prepare your heart as you approach the entrance. If you wish, pick up a stone to take with you as a symbol of the life burdens you carry with you. When you reach the center, leave the stone. Feel free to spend whatever sacred time you need in the center. When you are ready to leave, pick up another's stone to carry in prayer. We carry other's burdens in Christ. As you leave the labyrinth, leave your stone-burden behind.
Go with God.
We have visited this garden several times, and by the look of my pictures, always in the winter! It is an interesting place and built adjacent to a Farmers Branch community garden which adds a whole other level of interest.
I particularly like the memorial stones around the whole labyrinth which were probably purchased as a kind of funding for the construction.
Do you know the difference between a labyrinth and a maze? A labyrinth has is one long path with only one solution. It is convoluted, but will ultimately take you to the designed destination. A maze has paths that will not necessarily take you to the proper destination so you can get "lost" so to speak.
Some of the spiritualism around mazes and labyrinths seems a little inappropriate to me for a Christ-centered prayer garden, but I think this church handles that well with their plaque inscription (shown above) explaining their interpretation of the labyrinth's purpose.