IS YOUR JOURNEY A MAZE OR A LABYRINTH?

A LABYRINTH

A MAZE YOUR FRIENDS

Why do you think that the forms of the labyrinth and the maze are so popular to our minds? Is it solving a puzzle? Finding our way? Or is it the journey itself? In my understanding. there is a fundamental difference between a maze and a labyrinth. A maze includes choices that may lead to a blocked or dead end, having to turn and reverse your path back to where you last made a choice. With a labyrinth though, the choice is to stay on the path. to see it through to the end. As I have grown older, I have appreciated more the statement my father oft said, "You're gonna live till you die."
I guess this week's interview from Political Scientist, Alan Wolfe, regarding "Many Paths, Many Ways" in some ways reflects a shift from looking at other people's paths as not so much a maze of probable dead ends but rather another labyrinth of experience as genuine and valid as mine. This is particularly true when both mine and other person's validity is marked by integrity for others and life itself.

Below are several observations from Wolfe, do you find any to be unusual coming from a political scientist?





In America we invented a new religion, the Judeo-Christian tradition.

(In the past) saying "I'm religious" meant "My way is the only way." And that's not how people speak anymore.

No one believes in the old truths anymore.

(Your own labyrinth...) a little Thomas Merton, a bit of Gandhi, a bit of Mother Teresa, a little Elie Wiesel, and Vaclav Havel, and you put it all into a mix.

When one alerts the labyrinth builder that these are from different traditions the response of the  builder is,"Well, maybe they are, but they speak to me. 

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita