I’m mostly not following political events from the United States while traveling this month. But what’s happening on the other side of the Atlantic is being watched by Europeans — and the news about growing fascism is unavoidable. They are openly comparing America now to what happened here in the 1930s.

So, I’m considering current affairs from afar — physically, contextually, and spiritually. I can’t help but think about home.

A few days ago, as I left Chartres after spending a week at the cathedral, I hastily wrote the reflection below in my journal. I share it with you to offer the gift of perspective from across the ocean — and just maybe some hope.

June 7, 2025
Chartres, France

There really are no words to explain what happened on the Thursday labyrinth walk.

We entered the cathedral at dusk, on a moody evening, low grey skies, intermittent showers, and a brisk breeze. The building was closed to all visitors, open only to us. As we entered the church, the lights were dimmed.

We went in the south portal, where a pathway of candlelight guided us down the side aisle — under the window of Mary Magdalene — to the front of the building. There, as fading light fell through the great rose window, we lined up at the labyrinth. One at a time, we were admitted to the ancient path.

And so we — I — walked the labyrinth.

The way is so familiar to me, having walked it so many times in replica. I wondered if and how this walk might be different from all those — the scores of times I have traveled this path in prayer.

Step, step, step. Slowly, with each footfall, it occurred to me that this wasn’t the same walk. This wasn’t a replica. This was the original, nearly 1,000 years old.

This was the ancient path. Not a spiritual clone. Not a copy. The mother-labyrinth of all the others, the womb of the walk.

Outside, the storm had intensified. I could hear the wind blowing against the building. Howling, really. Not shaking the stone, of course. But making its way under aged doors, through whatever cracks and entry points it could find — stirring the air across the labyrinth as a far more gentle breeze.

I thought of Pentecost — for it was the Thursday before the great holy day. The New Testament tells two stories of Pentecost. One is the dramatic version of wind and fire, a great spiritual storm of re-creation. The other version of the story is quieter. The disciples gathered behind the locked doors of the Upper Room, anxious that the authorities would arrest and execute them as they had Jesus.

Instead of their feared enemies, however, Jesus showed up with them and said, “Peace.” He breathed on them. Peace.

As I sat in the middle of the labyrinth, I felt that peace. The womb-labyrinth, the mother’s heartbeat, the tender breath of peace, shielded here from the raging storm outside.

And I felt my own body, as if it was rooting itself in the earth. Something reached from the crown of my head down the center of my being into the stones on the floor, down through the floor, down through the crypt, down the ancient well deep within the cathedral, down to the the spring the ancient inhabitants of this land considered sacred. Deeper and deeper, down.

It is an odd thing to sit on an ancient cold floor in a medieval cathedral and feel the earth. For, above my head were twelve stories of space and the gothic vault, which was built to echo the vault of heaven. Slowly, very slowly, I lifted my head to that expanse.

The sky above; the earth below. The spangled stars; the sacred spring. All one. One. And I was sitting where they met.

In the center, lost in a spiraled space.

I’m not sure how long I sat there. But, eventually, I sensed it was time to return, to walk back out of the labyrinth.

It was not easy, however! Getting up is not quite as it once was. I struggled a bit. I noticed the wind again, gusting against the doors.

A fellow pilgrim reached out and offered her hand, pulling me up.

I thought of Pentecost again: “I will send you a Helper, the Holy Spirit… Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

A helper. In the labyrinth. Rise and walk. Take my hand.

Offer your hand.

And so, I left the center on a journey of return. Following the same path out but different.

I sat at the edge of the labyrinth on one of the small church chairs, not wanting to leave the cathedral. The light was dimming toward night. I knew the weather to be turbulent outside.

And that’s the thing about labyrinths. You can’t stay in the middle of them. You must return and face the storm.

But the rose window was still oddly luminous, even in the storm, and I knew the candlelight would guide me home. For a seemingly timeless evening, the world spun around an alternative axis — the mystery of grace, the breath of peace. The womb, the spiral.

I pondered as I followed the old alleys back to my apartment: What does all this mean? What next? What of the torrents at home?

I have so many questions. I’ve always had questions.

Sometimes people say that we’re on a path of no return. Perhaps that’s not correct. Maybe we always return. From different experiences, from seeing the world anew. We journey in and journey out. We receive and return. Not the same as before — for something has changed — but we do return.

Along the way, my hand can reach for others — and help them to rise and follow the path back into the world. To return. Not to what was, but to a clearer vision of what might be, a better way of being. Hand in hand. We must take this walk together. Because the journey home seems very hard right now.

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