Walking The Labyrinth

Tonight was the last night of LOGOS for the Fall term. Every Fall ends with walking the labyrinth. The chairs are cleared out of the sanctuary and a labyrinth is set up with greenery. Each kid gets to walk to the middle with an unlit candle where they are met by two of our pastors. They light the candle and gave each child a blessing. And then the candle gets placed on a silver star. The sanctuary is in total darkness and quiet Christmas music plays.

My pictures are not really great because we don't have an awesome camera and I didn't want to use the flash and disturb the ambiance, so excuse the blurriness. During Advent the cross is taken down from the front of our sanctuary and a huge wreath of greens with lights is put up. At first that was the only light in the place. (You can see the wreath in the upper left hand corner of the pictures.)

The Youth and Jr Youth started everyone off because it was super-dark with only a couple of candles and the wreath lit. There were about fifty or so kids, and even Sam and Rachel got turns. Because it is a long evening the coordinators even let us go earlier than we normally would have so we could go home. No adults get to walk the labyrinth unless they are accompanying a child who needs help. So I went with Sam. He did such a great job of being quiet, walking slowly and holding his candle carefully. He really got the solemness of the occasion. He even picked out a star ahead of time to place his candle on. Of course it was at the beginning of the labyrinth so he had to carry his lit candle (which was a tealight placed in a jar with some sand) all the way back through the labyrinth. But he was so careful.

Dave helped Rachel go through and she walked the whole way to our pastors but then got tired. Rachel was also pretty quiet which was amazing. But what is more amazing to me is that even my young kids picked up on the sacredness of the occasion.

This was a beautiful celebration and I was so glad that my kids could be a part of it.