The Sexton was nice enough to put up a extension ladder leading to the roof of the Parish Hall. The Sun is going down fast. Gordon and Judy, the two priests at Grace St. Paul's, have OK'd my shooting the Thursday Evening Labyrinth Walk. The parishioners are just beginning to arrive, about ten in all. With me on the roof, I tell the walkers that I'm going to shoot the meditation this late afternoon.
"And don't worry if you're shy and don't like your picture taken." I say "I'm using real long shutter speeds and everyone will be just a blur. Will that be OK?"
"Sure that's fine," one woman says, with others nodding their approval. But one woman walks to the side.
"Really, you can walk the Labyrinth. No one will know who you are." I say. She didn't say anything but she didn't return to the circle until much later.
Judy, the facilitator of the Walk, explains to the congregation how this works.
"One by one, we'll enter the labyrinth and begin to walk," she says.
"You can have a prayer or a question in your mind or you can just empty your mind. You can walk it fast or slow. There is no right or wrong way. I would just suggest that you stay as much in the moment as you can. Just be in the Labyrinth. And when you reach the center, stop for as long as you like, and then walk back out. And don't worry about bumping into each other or passing each other in the Labyrinth. It's really easy to pass."
Some people chuckle.
"Also, I suggest you walk silently. All right, let's start."
Judy presses play on a boom box nearby and Gregorian Chants come from the small speakers. One at a time, the participants begin to enter the labyrinth.
A little history about me and the Church.
I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church. Baptized, confirmed, the whole nine yards. My mother Mary is what I affectionately call a member of the Episcopal Mafia: a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Virginia, music director and a vestry woman at her parish in Lively, Virginia, and active in the Church since she was a child. Dad was Senior Warden for a time and designed the Memorial Garden at his home church of St. Mary's Whitechapel, but rarely went to church in his retirement years. He didn't believe in God, much less Jesus, but he was still a cradle to grave Episcopalian. My sister is a member of the choir at St. Mark's Episcopal in Raleigh, North Carolina, but by her own admission, she is only going to church to "cover my bets just in case there is a heaven."
I rarely go to church. Christmas. Maundy Thursday. Maybe Good Friday. Not Easter. Funerals, yes. Weddings, when they happen. That's about it. I'm not a Christian. I don't believe in the Risen Christ, and I believe that they basically fucked up the faith after the Nicene Convention in the third century AD, when they took out the Gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene, and minimized the sacredness of women in the Church. Plus I believe in Reincarnation, the validity of all of the world's religions and the sanctity of the mystic's individual journey to God. Some would say that shouldn't exclude me from attending Grace St. Paul's, a very progressive, liberal, reconciliation church, but it does. In my own mind, not the minds of the congregation or the clergy, but my mind.
When I do, on those rare occasions, attend a service at Grace St. Paul's, I add and take out words from the liturgy so I don't feel like a hypocrite. You'll often hear me say "Through Jesus Christ and others" instead of "Through Jesus Christ our Lord" and when the congregation is reading the Nicene Creed, there are whole sections in which I stand silent and mute.
But my roots, both ancestral and personal, are in the Anglican/Episcopal church and to deny that would be, for me, like a Jew who doesn't go to temple, denying that he is a Jew. And I do like the ceremony of Holy Communion, a good non-shaming sermon from the pulpit, and strong loud music from a big pipe organ. I go to midnight service on Christmas Eve, primarily to sing "Silent Night", and at the outside chance, to sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." And even though I don't go to Easter services, I can easily hum the refrains from "Hail Thee, Festival Day" and "Jesus Christ is Risen Today."
The Church is in my DNA and in my muscle memory whether I like it or not. And I believe it's important to honor the spiritual practices of my ancestors, living and dead. And even though I only believe that Jesus was a great teacher and not the Son of God, I do believe in a loving, magical, and healing energy in the universe that some call God. I call it God, too.
The Labyrinth is now full of people. Perhaps a dozen. I remember that Meghan turned me on to the Labyrinth, the one at Chartres Cathedral in France, and the stories of the devout walking it on their knees there. Today, all are on their feet. Some are solemnly looking down. Others are joyously swinging their arms around the corners of the maze. A couple are sitting outside of the circle. Me? I'm on the roof mumbling about how I'm losing the last bit of sunlight. My exposures are up to 5 seconds now but it's not the blurs I mind. I want them. I just need some light for a good negative. I'm a little flustered. I relax and take a breath. Breathe, Stu, breathe, I say to myself. I see Beth, a friend, make a sweeping move around a sharp corner of the labyrinth, and open and close the shutter. Nice. Open shutter again. Advance the film. Open. Advance. I watch the changing composition of people below, in the ground glass of the viewfinder of my twin lens reflex. Wait. Shoot. Advance. Shoot again. Shoot again.
After a few more minutes I'm done shooting, yet the parishioners are still walking the maze. I climb down the ladder and walk toward the entrance of the Labyrinth. I take a breath, wondering 'Did I get the shot?' I clear my head as best I can and enter the maze, slowly passing someone who is coming out. Take a Left. Look at my feet. Long slow curve to the right. Hairpin curve. Long slow curve to the left. Hairpin curve again, and I let my arms swing wide as I turn. And for just a moment, I'm grateful to be a member of the Anglican Mob.
[Photographic note: "Grace St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Tucson, Arizona" has a blessed accident in it. I accidentally double-exposed the image shown here, causing all of the walkers to appear as ghosts. This was not my intention but when I looked at the proof sheets, it was obviously the most evocative of all the exposures. Serendipity happens a lot to me in my work. In life and love, too.]