Amazing Creation

As I mentioned in my last post, we're creating a Prayer Garden with a labyrinth in the courtyard at the entrance to my church.

I don't have a good photograph of it yet. This one is old but it shows the nice floor-to-ceiling windows that look out onto the entrance from the church office. (My little office is adjacent to the church office and has one of these windows as well.) You can see in the background part of the beautiful oak tree which will at the center of the labyrinth--The Tree of Life! On this tree we are hanging a multitude of wind chimes. (Oh, the few already there are so arresting--I stop when I hear them, and I let their beautiful tones minister to me.) And all around this courtyard entrance will be flowers and plants, and a bench or two for meditation. The church is on almost 7 acres--it's a park, really, with about 40 oak and pecan trees. We'll be able to walk the labyrinth, sit on a bench at the Tree of Life, listen to the music of the chimes, look out on this lovely park, and know the goodness of God.

I can't wait!!

Today five TONS of stone were delivered, sandstone in rectangular blocks, to be exact. One of our members, MS, (bless his heart!) is doing most of the work on this, and he'll be the one to actually build the labyrinth with this stone. He went with me and our other minister yesterday to choose it. It's a really nice "striped sandstone" that matches the church building pretty well.

I'm so thrilled at this project--we all are! One day this summer the church administrator, CE, and I were bemoaning the ugliness of the entrance. What little grass that was there was all burned up and we had weeds everywhere. I put a little notice in the newsletter: "Calling all Gardeners," thinking perhaps we could get some retired folks interested in taking this courtyard as a project. No takers. It was over a month later when MS, who works fulltime, got interested all on his own--I don't think he read that article. Then CE mentioned something about the courtyard to our current moderator who just happened to respond with, "You know, I've always envisioned a labyrinth in that space." Well! That little comment reminded CE that years ago the church allocated $1,000 for a labyrinth, but it was never used! She jumped up and ran to tell me. I grabbed MS and we all went outside, and there we started to "see" it together.

$1,000 isn't much. We spent the bulk of it on the sandstone. We're hoping church members will catch the spirit and start to contribute. A few people have already brought plants for MS to put in the new flowerbeds he's already made.

Creation. It's quite amazing.

(wind chimes via Google Images)