the last few years we have mown a labyrinth in the grass outside st mary's church in ealing. this year it took joel and i only an hour - we must be getting more confident! instructions here if you want to mow your own... saturday night grace was walking this labyrinth with a cafe set up outside under the trees - it was wonderful. if you are nearby it will be there for a month or so. the banner to the far right of the photo has a bit of blurb about walking it and about labyrinths. an ideal way to slow down and reflect in the midst of the busyness called london...
looking back through the blog i realise i never added anything about the new year labyrinth at grace.i was reminded of it because we had a group of students visiting from calvin college who recorded a short movie and sent me a link. anyway i thought i'd add it as a worship trick as it seemed to work well, was very low tech, and may be useful for other people...
it's all written up in the grace archive page. we used the st paul's labyrinth cloth which has inbuilt stations and the themes were:
stillness
reflect
thanks
sorrow
holy space
gift
hope
fear
presence
the backdrop on the screens playing silently (st mary's where we meet has now got three projector screens) was the movie by st etienne finisterre which is a beautiful hour of footage of a day in london.
join us at grace next saturday for a labyrinth, a great way to walk prayerfully into the new year
the labyrinth is mown - we decided to do it a day early as the weather was fine and the forecast bad for most of the week... this is adam in action mowing his first labyrinth.
it's that time of year again...
adam and i will be mowing a grass labyrinth out the front of st marys ealing. this year there will be a big sign with instructions/info for walking so that passers by can engage with it while it's there for a couple of weeks or so. saturday night is the annual grace bbq and labyrinth that anyone is welcome to come along to. it's always a good one.
the labyrinth web site has had an overhaul...
the labyrinth: a transforming ritual has just been published by ytc press. in it i explore ritual and how it is strategic in postmodern times using the labyrinth that we set up at st pauls cathedral in 2000 as my example. this may sound familiar to some of you because it's my dissertation finally getting into print.
ytc press is a new company that is going to be publishing books for youth ministry and they have an academic/monograph line that this is in...
following the success of last year's mown labyrinth, we repeated the feat... this was the third labyrinth i have mown now and once again it came out pretty well. it helps if it's on a decent piece of turf and the grass at the front of st mary's is really good. in fact that piece of ground never gets used by the church as far as i know. (follow the link above if you want to know how to mow one.)
this year we combined the labyrinth with a bbq so people could walk the labyrinth as and when they liked during the evening. if you want to know what labyrinths are all about explore this site or read this summary from the dekhomai card.
it brings to a close another year of grace (well almost - we still have a gracelet to go). it's been a fab year - new ideas, new people, new adventures in faith, along with some difficult things to face. i thank god for grace - it's wonderful to be part of a community working out what it means to follow christ together in a way that is creative and relates to everyay life. it's home for me in terms of faith. we concluded the evening by gathering round the bbq and dropping granuals of incense on the glowing coals to pray as the incense rose into the night.
there are a few pics in the gracelondon flickr group and no doubt a few more will get added.
i have just finished mowing the labyrinth for grace this saturday.
come and join us if you are free...
following our latest labyrinth creations, and picking up ona rather mad conversation we were having on saturday steve has designed the labydome. i am making it a worship trick though i'll be very suprised if anyone ever creates one though you never know!
last week's labyrinth was a trial run for today's at minet park festival in southall where grace had been invited some months back to create an outdoor labyrinth. this time we went for a more complicated pattern - the same one as at chartres cathedral. it came out ok though the mower was much harder to control, and the grass was much more scraggy (if you want to mow a labyrinth pick some nice turf). i actually mowed it on wednesday and it had improved somewhat since then so you could make out the path ok... the festival was pretty quiet with a trickle of visitors to the labyrinth so it ended up being a pretty chilled afternoon in the sun. i have added a couple of pics to the labyrinth set in flickr though there was no church tower this time to get an aerial view...
the day before i was due to mow the grass labyrinth for grace, the grass contractors who had been asked not to turn up went and mowed the grass! after a mild panic we realised that the grass was probably left long enough to create a labyrinth still. so we went ahead. it turned out fantastically well. taking inspiration from brother anthony here's a how to create your own grass labyrinth. it's incredibly low budget if you borrow a mower! honestly anyone could do it - we have a patio for a garden which tells you how much i know about mowing but managed to do a good job with jen.
1. decide on a labyrinth design. we picked one that looked relatively simple and was based on a pattern of circles. (next week i am going to be creating a more complicated one on the chartres pattern).
2. get your kit together - borrow a mower - we had one with blades of 40cm width which worked well. then you need a tape measure, some small sticks or tent pegs for marking it out. some pieces of string, some longer sticks, a cricket stump or equivalent, and a longish piece of washing line.
3. on a diagram of the labyrinth work out your mesurements. what you do is bang the cricket stump in the centre point. tie the washing line round it and then tie pieces of string on the washing line to mark the distance from the centre of each circle. the centre can be as big as you like. but each circle after that needs to be the width of the mower blades plus enough width for the lines inbetween the path. we went for about 8 inches on top of the width of the blades which seemed about right. once you have done this with the washing line taught move it round in a circle and put tent pegs/small sticks to mark all your circles out
4. with your diagram in front of you work out where the turns are and place your longer sticks there so that when you are mowing you don't cross a line you shouldn't and so that you know where to turn.
5. follow the path from the entrance and always mow against the outer edge of the circles. go slowly and carefully especially at a turn. if in doubt stop and look at the diagram to check it is correct.
6. having mowed the whole path go over it once more.
7. that's it - a beautiful labyrinth - it took me and jen 2 hours to create it from start to finish. it cost nothing.
we ran it at grace with a focus on pentecost. in the centre we had some oil so that you could pray for the next person to arrive to be filled with the spirit of god by anointing them with oil. we gave some simple guidelines for walking. i think walking intenitonally and prayerfully takes a bit of getting used to. the first time you walk a labyrinth can be a bit weird. and it's good to make the most of the centre as a space for prayer/being still or whatever.
there are lots of photos in the gracelondon flickr group (or will be). mark has a lovely one from the top of the tower with people walking on it. i have created a set - one man went to mow
next up at grace is a celebration of the coming of the Spirit. we'll be mowing a labyrinth in the grass at the front of st marys, walking it prayerfully praying to be filled with the Spirit at the centre before beginning the journey out. we than have storytelling round the firewok before going over the road to the pub... should be a great night. it's on saturday june 10 8pm. this is a first for mowing a labyrinth in grass for us inspired by brother anthony from burford priory and his labyrinth mowing with a piece of string, a hand push mower, and a few sticks. if it goes well i'll be back blogging a how to mow a labyrinth blog post as a worship trick. if it's never mentioned again you'll know it was a disaster...
the following week we are taking part in the minet park festival in southall with arocha and mowing a larger labyrinth there based on the chartres pattern and running a tent with activities related to labyrinths. so this is a sort of warm up before the big one.
is it all over for the magic of the labyrinth now you can buy it on a rug in IKEA?!
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where i come across creative ideas, liturgies, movies, music tracks, service outlines or anything that strikes me, i add them as worship tricks. i started these in april 2002 when i first began blogging and they have built up over the years so that i am now on the third series. this has proved a pretty popular feature of the blog.
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