That's actually not strictly true. It could be a right turn. A U-turn. A moment of complete confusion when you aren't entirely sure which way you are coming from, let alone which way you're supposed to be going! All I know is, in my labyrinth, you can be walking peacefully along, coming up on the nice center, where there are seats and mats and the evergreen in the middle, and you think you're just about to arrive. . . and then you discover the path does a 180 and you're now walking directly away from the center.
I've noticed my life is like that, too. As a kid, I'd get settled into a new neighborhood, and we'd move. Again. In high school, I had to go for an extra year (for reasons too complicated to go into). In college, I couldn't decide on a major (all I ever wanted to do was write--there are degrees for that now), then I chose one, then I suddenly got married instead. Two years later, I waddled happily through my first pregnancy, then ended up spending heart-pounding days beside a Neonatal Intensive Care Isolette.
Recent years--okay, decades--haven't been any different. I think I'm slowly figuring out that this is life. This is what it's about. Circling, doubling back, stopping, starting again. . . turning, turning, till you "come round right," as the Shakers sang it.
In an odd sort of way, there's a kind of comfort in that. You don't just get second chances, you get dozens. They're not exactly the same, of course, but the kind of compassion and love you failed to provide that time--you know the time I mean--you'll get to try again when someone needs you this week. The lesson you didn't learn yesterday, you'll learn tomorrow. The gift you missed giving is still in your heart. Dig it out and find another way to give it.
There's a reason for all these do-overs. The labyrinth is just there. Inanimate, almost. Static, not quite. I walk it, and put on it what meaning I choose. But it's only a symbol. God, unlike the labyrinth, is living, moving, planning, dreaming. God has plans for you. And infinite patience. There are so many more ways for you to get what God is trying to say, and God will try them all. And smile while you figure out the treasure map that is being laid before you, changed as you change, adapted perfectly to what you need. Not the circumstances, mind. I don't feel the same as those who believe God chooses everything that happens to them, though I recognize that many people find comfort in that, and more power to them. For myself, it's more comforting to think that God is just as sorrowful as I am when disaster happens (though not frightened) but walks ahead of me into that disaster, dropping secret jewels for me to find amid the flames and the muck and the smoke. And then holds me close while I find them, dig them out, wash them off, set them on the walls of my heart, or give them away to someone else on the path.
And who knows, maybe sometimes the sudden left turn saves my life, or the life of someone walking nearby.
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