A prayer labyrinth can deepen your practice.
Let the Rev. Charlotte H. Sommers tell you about a prayer labyrinth and a few things about the group that built it. In the larger community, she works to promote diversity, and her latest accomplishment was working with the Troy Interfaith Group to create an Interfaith Labyrinth on the grounds of the Northminster Church.
Prayer labyrinths are not mazes intended to confuse the walker, but rather circular pathways that lead slowly but surely to a central point. Walking the labyrinth is a tool for prayer and meditation. The practice was developed centuries ago to blend prayer and movement, as in a pilgrimage.
About the Troy Interfaith group
Our group hosts some major events during the year, writes Rev. Sommers, and one of these is the National Day of Prayer, which we observe with an interfaith service. A few years ago in Troy, we had a controversy that made news headlines across the state.
National Day of Prayer events are often supported by evangelical Christians, and here in Troy, a Hindu woman, Padma Kuppa, wanted to say a prayer in a public National Day of Prayer event, but was discouraged. This led a number of us to form the Troy Interfaith Group. I offered to host the Interfaith National Day of Prayer event at Northminster Church, where I am the pastor, which is how I got involved.
Now, there are several of us from the interfaith group who have lunch together every month. We just casually say it’s time to get together for lunch and then we talk about all kinds of things, from books to politics to what’s going on in our lives and our families. These friendships have developed as a result of working with the Troy Interfaith Group, which was a surprise to me; I didn’t expect these deeper friendships to develop.
Read the stories from the Women of WISDOM:
This story about female friendship is part of a collection of personal stories from Friendship & Faith, a book that delves into the decisions and experiences about faith and friendship shared by a group of Detroit-area women. This particular explanation of a prayer labyrinth is by the Rev. Charlotte H. Sommers, a woman of WISDOM.
Want more? Read another story or check out Friendship & Faith.
