In Pursuit of Bread and Angels ♥
At the bakery the other day, I bought two loaves of bread for a couple of teachers who had shared their wisdom and time in a class I was taking. The symbolism of breaking bread with others, especially in this month of Thanksgiving, tugged at my heartstrings. Thoughts of just baked bread steaming hot from the oven and then shared across the table with family and loved ones evoked a sense of coming home, a profound longing for return. I wondered about this state of longing, a seemingly universal pull. Return to what? Return to whom? And what exactly does coming home mean or more plainly, what is meant by coming back?
Sometimes the longing for return rises up in a person when we have wandered to some degree away from what sustains us. And a person’s wandering can be composed of an entire kaleidoscope of distractions and circumstances . . .
Recently, I came across a labyrinth in the desert. There in the pristine beauty of bare thorns in the bluest sky, stones were arranged in a circular pattern across the desert floor.
Stones of similar sizes had been strategically laid down in a path to walk. The path circled back and forth and finally returned to the beginning. Labyrinths have been historically noted since ancient times and date back as far as 4000 years ago. Initially, they were associated with a Greek myth involving a Minotaur (head of a bull, body of a man) held captive in a complex maze by King Minos of Crete.
Even Plato addresses labyrinths in his dialogue Euthydemus, where Socrates describes the concept of a labyrinthine argument in a debate:
Then it seemed like falling into a labyrinth: we thought we were at the finish, but our way bent round and we found ourselves as it were back at the beginning, and just as far from that which we were seeking at first.
The most popular labyrinths are unicursal labyrinths with a single path to the center. Unicursal labyrinths can be circular or square and are found in churches, gardens, cave walls, coins, and baskets. Today, labyrinths are a popular form of meditation and prayer as one walks the journey on a path that ultimately leads back to the beginning.
In a similar way, the Rosary is comprised of beads spaced along a chain or cord. Of smaller scale than the actual ground covered in many labyrinths, the Rosary is a path traveled one bead to the next, in a person’s hands.
It is a Scripture-based prayer. One journeys by holding a bead between the fingers and meditating and praying on a particular scene or Christian mystery from the New Testament. The beads are grouped in sets of ten called decades. The path of the Rosary leads one back to the beginning of the first beads where one started in a repetition of prayers. One need only to slip quietly into a Catholic church to find bowed heads, closed eyes, and whispering lips of those praying the Rosary in the pews.
In essence, the journey of the labyrinth and the journey of the Rosary are a sort of pilgrimage. I think about the cadence of walking, the rhythm of moving beads between one’s fingers, and I wonder if perhaps the actual physical doing (walking the path or touching each bead) takes the burden off the pondering, that perhaps answers come like an effervescence arriving when least expected, when the “magnifying glass” has been set aside and the discovery of forgotten things returns like the dewfall.
Nobel Prize in Literature recipient T.S. Eliot addresses the concept of coming back in his poem The Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
After I left that wonderfully aromatic bakery with my loaves of bread, I happened upon a gift store with all different kinds of beautiful angels. The incandescent light reflecting through those crystal wings initiated another longing in my heart and I realized the celebration of Advent and the beginning of the western Christian churches’ liturgical year was about to begin on the last Sunday of November.
That the word advent comes from the Latin word adventus meaning arrival or coming brought a certain synchronicity to the longings I was experiencing. Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas when the first coming of God’s Son is celebrated. It is also a season when Christ’s second coming at the end of time is anticipated. It is a time of waiting and return, of joy and rejoicing.
In the darkening days as we approach the winter solstice, I cling to the warmth and light of shared bread and angels. I desperately need the miracle of Christ and of being loved. I am so grateful for family and friends. I am thankful for paths that lead me to rediscovery such as the labyrinth and the Rosary.
I send warmest wishes and gratitude to all of you for stopping by. Blessings to you in whatever way you experience longing and return. And peace and honor to you in your own personal beliefs and worship.
Peace and Good Will!