And just like that, the cohort year is over. The last airline boarding pass has been scanned and hotel key handed in, the last hugs with newfound friends were exchanged, and with some sadness but also ok-ness, I walked away, probably for the last time ever, from the beautiful Micah Center. 

I’ve been back home for over five weeks and already the whole year is settling in like a dream. Life here has resumed with all its usual joys and complexities and busyness. So many things to do. But my time with the cohort – a year of resting in “not-doing” – remains within me like a jewel I turn over and over in my mind’s eye. Like Mary I have been treasuring up all these things and pondering them in my heart. 

A hero on a journey returns to the community with a boon that benefits everyone and I wonder…what exactly is the gift I was left with? What was the journey for? After a year of concurrent spiritual direction in Winnipeg, I’m more aware than ever of areas of my life in need of God’s healing. What has this spiritual beginner brought back?

On the last day, I was feeling full and blessed by everything when a shadowed thought struck me. “What if conflict seeps into my life again?” I flinched, especially as I remembered “the” conflict. Frederick Buechner says life is always terrible and beautiful all at once, and I knew I was not immune just because I have a new toolkit of spiritual practices. But as quickly as the shadow arrived, a reflexive assurance came in its place, that God would be present there, just as God had been present through everything in the past year. God lies at the interface of suffering and hope, always. 

I’ve since been grateful for that moment because of course, life is life and as author Kate Bowler says, everything happens. Not just the feel goods. (Why do I keep being surprised by this?) 

We received our last spiritual practice on the final day of the cohort when we went on a field trip to walk a labyrinth together, located in the gym of a local church. Once we got seated on the bleachers, Joe taught us that labyrinths were originally designed for those with neither the time nor resources to go on a weeks long pilgrimage. It is meant to be walked slowly and prayerfully. Like our lives, its winding path has unexpected bends in the road. At times a person will be far from the center and at times close, only to walk far away again. But, Joe said, we are never not on a path leading to the center, to God. While a maze is malevolent and tries to trip you up, a labyrinth is benevolent. Whatever our twisting lives look like, we are always journeying towards the heart of God. 

As I entered, I was aware only of my bare feet on the cool floor. Was I walking too fast? Too slow? But the silence in the gym began to work on me. Alone with my prayers and thoughts, I began to sense gratitude for all that had brought me here. Every airport worker, the hotel omelette lady, my teachers and cohort friends, friends back home who were praying for me, my husband who supported me in so many ways to get here. I sensed gratitude even for the conflict. As painful as it was, God had not left me bereft but had filled the hollowed places with unexpected miracles and most of all with a growing sense that I am beloved of God. 

Just as Joe had promised, all the twists and turns faithfully led to the labyrinth’s center. I’d never noticed this before, but there are pockets, like the petals of a flower, meant for pilgrims to pause before the journey back out. I stood with my friends in silence that felt sacred. I hadn’t expected this moment to strike me so deeply. I didn’t want to leave.

As we debriefed afterwards, one cohort friend broke down. She had realized on her winding walk just how exhausted she was by a bend in the road that lay ahead for her in coming months. She lost her words and just shed tears. One by one people got up to sit with her in her grief, laying our hands on her and one another. Joe said a prayer. Another holy moment.

I’m still not sure all that my year’s pilgrimage has wrought in me. But one thing I am confident of. No matter what, the labyrinth is true. Even when we find ourselves on life’s outermost edges, we are all on a journey to the heart of God. As Joe kept reminding us all year, there is nothing we can do that can make God love us any less. 

Perhaps what I’ve brought home with me is a deeper awareness that this is true. Like the tiny acorn that Julian of Norwich took with her into her anchorage, it doesn’t seem like much at first glance. But it contains the whole world. 

That’s a souvenir that money can’t buy.