Stay on the Path

Many years ago I heard for the first time the phrase, "trust the process," which is now, in certain circles, thrown around as a cure-all much in the same way "Let go and let God" is used. Trusting in the process means relaxing into the flow of life with the a belief in its goodness. In an essential way, it is the very base level of faith--a belief that there is something beyond us, something both seen and unseen, something greater and powerfully real.

Last week I took my children, a friend, and her child, to walk a labyrinth. It was a spectacular sunny, summer day. We had views of the mountains and down into a lake. We walked through a field of wild flowers to pass through a wooden arch into the labyrinth where the children, the three little walkers, began to excitedly follow the path as it circled in and then out and then back in again. On their way to the center, they each asked me, at different times, how to get to the end. My son even once traveled backwards, worried he had made a misstep. "You can't get off the path," I told them. "Just keep walking and you will get there."

In the labyrinth, this is absolutely true. All you need to do is keep walking on the path. If you follow it, it will lead you where you want to go. You simply cannot get lost. It isn't a maze with false dead-ends, though at times it can seem similarly confusing. But with a maze you may not make your destination. In a labyrinth, put one foot in front of the other and you can't not make it.

As I walked the labyrinth and kept saying over and over to the children, "just stay on the path. Keep going. You'll get there," I heard my own voice and my own words like an offering. "Just keep walking. Stay on the path." I began to savor the idea that you can't get off the path, and I started to see how this is the truth of life, though at times we may not believe it. But faith and trust require a level of daring, a willingness to let go of pretending we know everything, to find we have been given all we need to know.

"Trust the process" may be trite at times, or insufficient, but it speaks to the simple truth of Divine Love's universe: you will make it to the center. No matter the circuitous path or the moments when you may fear. "Just keep walking." You will get there. We do not need to know how it unfolds exactly. We can let go of our disbelief and open to a more childlike delight just as the three children at the labyrinth, on their second stroll around, began to giggle and skip, run and hop the labyrinth walk. They knew, then, that they could not get lost. And neither can we.

--Rev. Sam Wilde