Thinking about Clay, Mulch, and Labyrinths on Good Friday

A year ago, our church's labyrinth was damaged. We used clay roofing tiles to make the lines of the labyrinth, and in the night, vandals smashed many of them. We spent part of Good Friday replacing them. I wrote a post about the experience here.

We've continued to have trouble with vandals, and finally, we removed the temptation. But we had already advertised that we would have a self-guided Stations of the Cross experience at the labyrinth, and we didn't want to abandon that. So on Wednesday, a team of us laid mulch along the lines of the labyrinth--people still walk on the grass, and the mulch guides them around the interlocking loops.

As we laid out the cedar mulch, I said to one of my co-helpers, "We'll all smell like hamsters when we're done."

I've spent the following time thinking about mulch and hamsters, about labyrinths. We may feel like hamsters trapped in a maze, but we're really pilgrims on a path. We may feel like clay vessels, and we are--but we contain all sorts of wonder. We are all headed to a destiny of mulch, but the Easter story reassures us that there's so much more that we can't understand.

Last night, we entered the Triduum, the three days. Here we are on the day that no bread can be consecrated. Here we are on the day when we celebrate the broken vessel that allows us to be so much more than clay and mulch.