By Natalie Delaat
The gates of my hometown parish hadn’t changed a bit from the days of my youth. As I pulled into the parking lot, my partner leaned forward in their seat to get a better glimpse of the sandy walls and stained glass gleaming in the sunlight.
“This isn’t what I had pictured.”
“Oh yeah?”
“It’s like… normal church looking.”
I laughed. As the only church that I’d known for the past 16 years worth of Sundays, I couldn’t agree more with the assertion of its normalcy. There was nothing more normal to me than the feeling of traversing the parking lot, walking up the uneven steps and among the flowers planted perfectly in the landscaping strips along the sidewalk.
Except for that I was here with my partner’s hand in mine.
I could feel myself tense with a familiar feeling of preparation as treading onto the sidewalk of the church usually meant an imposition of eyes – mostly ones that I couldn’t see. But even if I couldn’t see them, I could feel their gaze in the way my cheeks get hot and my hands clammy. I could feel it in a beat of silence in the homily. I could feel eyes bearing down on the clergy, as if they were specks of dust illuminated by the skylights over our heads.
There was no one here today though. The parking lot hosted a spattering of sedans in addition to the loyal blue of my Volvo, but our path to the prayer labyrinth was completely clear. The grotto hosting the Virgin Mary atrium that I was lucky to visit on special occasions was glowing in the distance, probably lit by her ever-present smile.
“The labyrinth is this way.” I said, pulling my partner gently past the stairs, the entryway, and the chapel. We strode in silence for a while, arm in arm, watching the grass blowing gently in the breeze that brushed my hair past my ear.
Passing the grotto of the Virgin, I led them to a small congregation of trees where the stations of the cross had been intermittently erected in the soft soil. Our feet clodded side by side up the hill, and towards a cove in the trees where the labyrinth rested. Reaching the clearing, we passed through a wooden gazebo lined with the vines of beautiful white and blue flowers.
They squeezed my hand as we passed under the bridge and finally reached the path of stone carved in the ground before us.
“This is really beautiful,” they sighed.
I couldn’t agree more. Flowering bushes in full bloom surrounded the small cove housing the labyrinth. Sunlight filtered through the boughs of the cedars standing guard around the circle, and the sound of robins singing echoed from pockets in the greenery.
“It really, really is,” I concurred.
They didn’t say anything more for a moment.
Then, they let go of my hand and released their arm from the crux where it sat interwoven with mine. I watched as they approached the entrance to the labyrinth’s path, reached down to pluck up a small flower that had been shed from the bushes surrounding us, and began to walk.
One foot after the other, they strode through the labyrinth rhythmically, weaving towards its core. There was something effortless and regal about their journey.
And then there was that feeling of being watched again.
It arose in the fluttering of the leaves around me, until I couldn’t differentiate what truly was the breeze and what was the angels observing my partner’s movement towards a truth, towards a prayer once they reached the core. That was the purpose of this garden – wasn’t it?
Maybe I should be worrying a little less about returning to a church fully out, hand in hand with a partner whom I love all the way down to their center, and start worrying about what I was in this grotto to accomplish.
To the tune of their footsteps on stone, I paced around the edge of the labyrinth, trying to find an object sacred enough for a plunge into meditation.
I started by picking up a stone, and I turned it in my hand. After deciding it was just really optimal for skipping, but ultimately not good enough for an offering, I placed it back down.
Next I examined a pretty flower, but some of the edges of the petals were turning brown, so I gave it a sniff and kept searching.
What about this stick? Or a pinecone?
As I scanned the scene, my partner circled into view. There was a wink, then a crooked smile as they circled round and our eyes caught for just a moment.
The next object I touched was perfect.
I made my way to the labyrinth’s entrance, gripping my tree branch to gather my strength, and breathing deeply to distract myself from the rattling in my ribcage.
I outstretched a single foot into the path, and then I was off in search of an answer. As I let one foot fall in front of me, and then another, I tried to listen more than I thought. I needed to know the reason why I felt so whole here, even with the parts of me that I had hid from the clergy down to the clothes that I wore. To the words that I chose. To the prayers I prayed.
Everytime my partner and I crossed paths, I couldn’t resist sneaking a glimpse of their face. I hoped that a small glance at their beauty wouldn’t distract me from the answers that I sought.
At first, all I could focus on was the feeling of my feet thudding against the stone. The rock didn’t give underfoot the way that grass might. It didn’t welcome me in or make me wonder about slipping right through it. It wanted me exactly where I was— aware of my body. Aware that I was walking and thinking, perceivable to everyone who was passing by the cove.
My mind wandered to memories of being here at the labyrinth, when the trees seemed so much taller and the circumference of the circle felt so much larger. Back then, everything seemed to be moving much faster as I raced towards the center, running from the bees in the flowers and from my brother’s hand stretched out behind me. The labyrinth had felt like a game – a race – where I might face a beast with great horns at the core.
Now however, I couldn’t find a sense of urgency even if I tried. Only a sense of curiosity persisted as we swung around the maze like hands on a clock. Would the clock have the answers once time itself ceased? Would I?
As I circled, my eyes caught on a bench at the edge of the circle again and again. I found myself focusing on the bench while I walked, particularly the inward swirling of the columns holding the seat up. It was tempting for just a moment to stroll through the bounds of the labyrinth’s walls and take a moment to sit on the bench. To feel the warm stone on my hands and forget all about this uncomfortable sense of unity with a place I had grown accustomed to fearing.
I couldn’t do that though. I had committed.
Turning away from the bench, I glanced upwards. There was only one great star visible above my head, nonoptimal for charting my course. But perfectly optimal for reminding me of the ever-present eye watching my journey.
For years on end, every time I watched that great star disappear beyond the horizon, I was certain that a God must exist.
What I wasn’t certain of however, is whether or not this God was the same that churned the cauldron of guilt in my stomach with tales of sin. The same God that clergy members whispered to me about, warned me of, seemed to fear with their lives. The same God who noticed if the straps of my shirt were too low, or the hem of my skirt too high. The same God who heard the poetry I murmured to the Basque gods of my ancestors, regarding it as though spoken with a forked tongue. The same God who was there when stories of priests hiding taloned hands and horns behind chasubles and birettas reached me, and I swore off the power of the institution.
Was it the same God that knew how I longed to lean in and kiss this beautiful friend of mine when they made my chest glow with happiness? The one who waited in the corner when I finally mustered the courage to do it?
It seemed unlikely. So much so that I felt tears welling up behind my eyes as the feeling of peace persisted, and the sun continued to warm my skin. As the birds continued to sing, and the angels squatted in the trees overhead, their wings rustling alongside the boughs.
Before I knew it, I nearly bumped into my partner in front of me. They were standing very still, at the center of the circle, the sun casting a glow upon their floppy hair.
As I stood in the center of the circle, the surrounding noise subdued even further. If there was ever a time and place for me to work through my conflict, it was here with my knees against the stone. I grazed my forehead with my fingertips, then moved them to my chest. I crossed my left shoulder, then my right, and sat.
What a shock to find that the sunlight on the leaves above me, around me, and even on the trees in the distance that I had glanced at from the backseat of a car for years, completely matched the eyes of the love of my life in their emerald brilliance. Even more staggering to remember that maybe a part of me had always known this from the moment I had first laid my eyes on trees to begin with.
And what a relief to realize that there was something holy that persisted through these feelings of doubt, these two Gods that had sat on my shoulders. Something tenacious as I sought out truth, one thing that remained consistent with the right thing to do.
Something that had been present the whole time. Even when I had originally ran this path, looked at these trees, dipped my hand in the fountain to watch the ripples cascade around the pool again and again, much to the dismay of my parents. As my brother and I pointed to the word ‘ass’ in the scriptures and giggled as loud as the deathly silence of the chapel would allow without disrupting the godly radiation of the altar or the elderly couple in front of us.
It was present when I wove through a library, when I wove through fabric, when I wove pieces of my partner’s hair behind their ears and spotted the small freckles on their lobes. When I enveloped a stranger in my arms, felt a worm inching along my skin, I screamed into the roar of a waterfall, and danced so fast I couldn’t feel the blisters forming on my heels.
When I dreamt about what I hoped to do for the rest of my life.
The closest form of complete truth that I have ever experienced was sitting in this circle, with someone I loved more than anything else, and remembering how love completely held the power to guide me back out. I stood, took my partner’s hand in mine, and walked out of the circle more sure than I had ever been before.