Paul Soupiset is keeping a journal about the prayer labyrinth we're building at the back of our church property. We've roughly leveled the ground now, though we have a lot of dead grass to clear out. Paul's latest post shows his ingenious way of laying out the labyrinth itself.

Our church sits atop almost solid limestone. There are thousands and thousands of rocks out there. I think it is fitting to build the labyrinth out of native materials. We already use these rocks for landscaping and forming various paths through the woods and between buildings. This thing is going to be cool.

A few days ago I mentioned the possibility of an open retreat for anyone in the world who could find a way to get a plane ticket here. I'll be talking to Tim and Paul about some details on this. I'm almost certain the labyrinth will be finished by then.

Stay tuned.

rlp

Note: The pictures at Paul's labyrinth journal look rather dreary. We're in Winter (or what we call Winter here). This Spring the land will be lush and green with wildflowers and all kinds of color.

Last March I wrote about someone stealing part of a prayer labyrinth at a church here in San Antonio. At that time Paul Soupiset was working on his Moleskine watercolor Lenten journal (which I HIGHLY recommend you seeing). One of of his Lenten pictures was inspired by his thoughts about building a prayer labyrinth at the back of the property at our church.

It looks like that dream is going to become a reality. A natural clearing has been levelled and some preparatory work done. There are a number of us who have volunteered to work on the labyrinth. Paul is blogging about it the process of this in a series of pictures during Lent.

This thing is going to be absolutely stunning. First of all, our church is buried in the woods. You'll have to follow a rather secretive and non-advertised prayer path out back that has no label and was made almost entirely by the vision and work of our 3rd to 6th graders. The path leads you through the woods to the back of the property where there is a simple pile of stones that forms an altar. And soon a labyrinth.

Here's a little video I made of the prayer path. The kids along with their very cool Sunday school teacher Ben have doubled its length since then.

Sorry about the video being jumpy

So now I want to let you in on a little secret. It's a dream that Tim Heavin (our other minister) and I have talked about. What do you think about having a Franciscan retreat at our church that would be open to anyone in the world who wanted to come? It would be rustic. We'd sleep on the floor and do contemplative prayers and singing at various hours of the night. Also hang out at the fireplace and talk about...everything. By then the prayer labyrinth would be finished, so people could try that too. What if all you had to do was get a plane ticket to San Antonio and you could stay at our church? We'd all eat together at the church, so you wouldn't have to worry about that. Then we would take people back to the airport and say goodbye.

Here's another cool thing. We wouldn't care if people were Christians or not. That's not the point. Anyone who is interested in exploring a monastic way of living could experience that for one night. We'd be thrilled if atheists and people of other faiths joined us. Imagine the conversations around the table.

I mean, do you think something like that could work? In this crazy world where we keep creating ideological and theological/philosophical barriers that keep us a part, do you think we could do something that would bring us together?

If we tried it, would you come?

rlp