by Mark Tooley
VirtueOnline
out-of-house writer
Would George Washington or Robert E. Lee have walked the labyrinth? This potentially New Age tool is now available at Christ Episcopal Church in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, which both generals once soberly attended.
Almost maze like, a labyrinth is a circle with a winding path within it, leading to its center. Liberal churches frequently host a labyrinth, typically a large canvass sheet thrown on the social hall floor, so that spiritual seekers can meditatively walk it on a path of self-exploration. Christ Church Old Town now regularly hosts a labyrinth on Saturday mornings, with passers-by invited by a large sign fronting George Washington Parkway.
The 230-year-old sanctuary majestically bestrides a leafy block in the center of what used to be a seaport town, but which is now a posh and historic bedroom community for Washington commuters.
The churchyard includes the graves of Confederate soldiers, and a few Revolutionary War ones. Recent head stones mark the graves of Kennedy-Johnson era U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler and his wife, signifying that Christ Church remains socially and politically prestigious. Inside the sanctuary, George Washington’s original pew box remains.
Across the aisle is Robert E. Lee’s pew. He was baptized as an adult in the church, which is a few blocks from his boyhood home. Both soldiers were admired for their piety but, as Virginia gentlemen, reticent to share details of their faith. Picturing either one popping by the social hall on Saturday morning to slowly walk around a canvass labyrinth is hard.
On a recent Saturday morning, the labyrinth at Christ Church is empty, though three women in upper middle age circle round it, reading the explanatory literature. “I don’t do visualization,” one comments to the others, as she evidently pondered what is expected of labyrinth walkers. Click here to read this entire news story.
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