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Finding Your C Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came. — Wendell Berry
It was
a toasty July afternoon in 2006 when the Rev. Holly Gloff, then brand new to St. Michael’s, took a stroll around campus to familiarize herself with where everything was.Her travels took her outside into the bright sunlight, and she wasted no time making for the shady grove on the northwestern side of the slate steps that lead to the church’s front door. She found some shade there … and an unexpected sense of peace and calm. She looked around at the trees and bushes that created such a natural sacred space. This, she thought, would be the perfect place for a labyrinth. And an idea was born. “I thought it would be a wonderful addition to St. Michael’s, but I didn’t want it to be my idea,” she says. “I wanted it to come from the parish, so it would be something everyone wanted.” Sometimes, time does the work for you. Holly didn’t push for the idea, but her interest in labyrinths prompted her to offer some adult education classes. Around the same time, she learned she had some money in the budget —about $2,000 – for educational materials. “So I went straight to labyrinths.com and bought a big plastic one,” she says with a laugh. “I started teaching about labyrinths, interest grew and eventually we had a committee that took this on as a memorial project.” So … what exactly is a labyrinth and what on earth do you do with it? A labyrinth is prayer on the move. It’s a meditation and prayer tool in the form of an ancient symbol that combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a purposeful, sometimes meandering path. The path is a metaphor for your life’s journey or your spiritual path
— and takes you on a contemplative, prayerful sacred journey. Our labyrinth is patterned loosely after a famous labyrinth at the Cathedral of Chartres, built in the cathedral nave between 1215 and 1221. With its rounded sides and 11 concentric circles filling a diameter of about 42 feet, this bit of sacred geometry is believed to have been the largest labyrinth in the Middle Ages world. The finished project was more an act of sheer grace than deliberate planning, Holly says. The more parishioners used the plastic labyrinth, the more interest grew in creating a permanent one. “We started to think through how to get that done and someone told me to call Tom Monaco. I didn’t know who he was, but I made the call and said I didn’t know exactly what he could do to help but I hoped he could help me and tell me what I need. He said, ‘Give me three days.’ He called back with a plan and I learned then that he was the retired dean of the Department of Horticultural Science at NC State.” He contacted a teacher in the department, Anne Spafford, who was looking for a project for her senior landscape architecture students. She toured the site with Holly and could see the possibilities. She knew at once this was the perfect project. She assigned each student to produce a plan. One ultimately was selected. “We also wanted to make sure this site would be pleasing to the eye all year round,” Holly says. “We asked for plants that bloom at different times of the year. You can see those efforts paid off, all these years later. There are camelias, Lenten roses, Redbuds … Beautiful.” The installation of the labyrinth took longer than expected — after all, seniors sometimes get busy in other areas as they get ready to leave school. The students did all the work by hand — each one physically put hand to shovel, rake and trowel to create the space. Waiting was a little frustrating, but the work finally got done.
