Turning Point

Dear One,

I don’t walk many labyrinths. Mostly because my precious feet don’t appreciate it when I spend too much time on them. Therefore, I let my fingers do the walking😉. Literally. I bought a labyrinth on Etsy that allows for such a thing. 

If you’re not familiar with labyrinths, they are used for meditative or walking prayer. I was recently asked to name where, on the labyrinth, I found myself to be. Was I entering or exiting? Was I far-flung off to one side or nearing the center?

I didn’t know.

All I knew was that I was at a place where the path turns. I was at a turning point. 

To turn is to move something (or in my case, someone) so it’s in a different position, faced a different direction. You know what that means, don’t you? To turn toward one thing is to turn away from another. 

Herein lies my struggle. Yours too, maybe? I am too often attached to where I am.

Turning points are invitations to see and walk into something previously hidden from our sight. And, by their very nature,they are invitations to leave something behind: ways of seeing, ways of being; some beliefs and even some griefs.  

Turning Point: 

• It happened when Jesus invited the fishermen to follow him. Leave your nets, he told them, and I’ll make you fishers of men. 
• It happened to Saul on the road to Damascus, when he went from persecuting the church to leading it. 
• It happened to Peter when his beliefs about who & what were unclean, were challenged and changed. 
• And it’s happening to me, as I leave behind my weeping years and shift my focus from all that’s died, to the new little green bits pushing up around my feet. Walking from death to life.

Turning points. 

Turning points reveal my attachments (and my fears). You’d think it would be easy for me to turn from mourning into dancing, but not so much. Not always.

I can get stuck in my old stories – my old ways of seeing & of believing & of being. Attached to who I was in world. Apprehensive of the new and the not yet.

But I’m at a turning point. And to turn is to change. And to change is to let something go.

Like Peter, like Paul, like those early disciples of Jesus.

I’m sitting here wondering: Will I take my turn? When the time comes (and the time has come) will I take my turn? 

What about you? Where are you stuck? What do you fear? And what do you need in order to “take your turn” when the time comes? Because friend, it’s not just coming for me. 

Turning Point: Our Little Life Words of the week. 

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DEEPER DIVE

Ponder: 

• Name 1-3 turning points in your life (in your ways of being, seeing, or believing). Pick one to journal about or to share with a friend.
• Where are you being invited to currently change? What resistances do you notice rising up within you? What fears?

Practice:

• Move a chair in your home or office to face a different way, see a different view.
• Choose one of the stories of Peter, Paul, or the disciples (see links in the letter), and notice what it must have cost them to “take their turn.”
  • Notice the fruit of their decisions.
  • What would the cost have been if they had chosen to stay where & how they were instead?
• Walk a labyrinth. Use this labyrinth locator to find one near you, or use this print out to let your fingers do the walking. Here’s a guide to serve you as you do.

Play: 

• Our song of the week is: Turn, Turn, Turn by the Byrds (and you’re going to love the video … sooo groovy🤣).

Pray:

• Help me to follow you, Jesus, through all the twists and turns in life.