Conversation #6 ~ Am I willing to reclaim time to think? (pp. 98-105)

When I read this sentence (p. 100), I thought of the history of Book Buddies.

"Are you encouraged to spend time ... reflecting on what you're learning?"

Here's the back story.  One day in 1996, I was paying for my purchases at Cokesbury Bookstore in Knoxville.  While the clerk was ringing up my books, I picked up the one on display near the cash register:

The Deep End of the Ocean, a new novel by Jacquelyn Mitchard, was about family torn apart when the youngest son was kidnapped.  Nine years later a young boy knocked on the door and asked the mother if she needed the lawn mowed.  She suspected he was her missing son.

The clerk noticed my interest and said, "Oprah's starting a book club, and that's the book she's chosen."  It looked interesting, so I added the book to my purchases, read it, and joined Oprah's new book club discussion on AOL.com.  Some of her readers were more active in the online discussion, and I invited them to an AOL chat room I opened for us once a week.  One of them called us "book buddies," and our group was born.  Donna was among that earliest group, and I met her and several others in person in 1998 when book buddies began getting together with each other.  A few years later, Oprah left AOL.com and went to Oprah.com.  Some of us moved with her, and I started two or three books groups at the new place — Book Buddies, Essencia Island, and Around the World in Eighty Days.  I think that's when I met both Shirley and Mary Zorro.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

After her mother died, Donna (AuntyDon) sold their house and moved to Chattanooga.  We opened a bookstore together in 2004 and named it Book Buddies, after the online group of friends.  Donna and I met Mary last year when she visited her daughter, who lives in a Chattanooga suburb, and the three of us walked a labyrinth together.

Donna, Bonnie, and Mary in 2012

When Oprah suddenly and without warning took down all the book discussion groups on Oprah.com, we were left without a "home" of our own.  Years of book discussions gone, just like that.  So I started this blog for us.  Notice our URL is http://bookbuddies3.blogspot.com.  See that "3" in the middle?  This is the third incarnation of Book Buddies — first with Oprah, then as a bookstore, and now on a blog where our book discussions will remain forever available, unless Blogspot folds or closes us down.  The books we've read are listed on the sidebar, linked to our discussions since 2007.

All that to explain why I say "Yes" to Wheatley's question.  Yes, I am willing to make (or reclaim) time to think.  This blog is testimony to my answer.  See also my profile, which says, "I read to explore ideas."  Yep, I'm all for thinking about stuff.

How would you answer Wheatley's question, "Am I willing to reclaim time to think?"

Labyrinth at St. Francis of Assisi

Mary (Zorro) searched out this labyrinth at an Episcopal church in Ooltewah, across town from where I live.  She and Donna (AuntyDon) and I arranged to meet there Friday morning to walk the labyrinth.  As we walked in silence, I collected a small pinecone that had fallen onto the sandy path among the brown leaves, and I saw Donna bend down to touch the black stones of a tile in the next picture.

These three stone tiles were placed at the beginning (which is also the end) of the path we walked.  The Alpha and Omega are separated by a tile showing a cross with a colorful glass (?) center.  All were designed with smooth inlaid stones.  If you were to walk across these tiles, rather than following the brick-outlined path, you'd be going straight into the center of the labyrinth...

...which is here.  Yesterday was a chilly morning, as you can see by the jackets.  Mary and Donna are standing at "9 o'clock" and "12 o'clock" on the cross in the center, meditating.  Mary looked up, Donna looked down, and I looked at my viewfinder to snap this picture before taking my place at the "3 o'clock" arm of this cross.  The entrance/exit for the center was at "6 o'clock" — in line with Donna.

Mary approaches the end of "unwinding" herself out of the labyrinth.  (See those three white tiles?)  Later, she suggested we should write a booklet telling people how to pray the labyrinth.  Donna pointed out what she read at the St. Paul labyrinth, that there's no one right way to walk a labyrinth.  This is quoted from the handout we picked up there:

Unlike a maze, a labyrinth offers no tricks, puzzles, or dead-ends.  The design forms a winding unicursal path which leads toward the center and back out again.  This sacred path in a sacred circle simply leads to a deeper connection to God, others, and ourselves. ... There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth.  Walk with an open mind and an open heart and receive whatever is there for you.  Release your expectations.  Focus on your breath.  Find your own individual pace.  There is one way in and one way out.  Those going in will meet those coming out.  You may "pass" others on the path or allow them to step around you.  Do whatever comes naturally.  Use everything as a metaphor.

We three met in the middle and walked out from that center separately, no one close to another except when we passed on adjacent parts of the path.

We ended our time together at Cracker Barrel, eating and having a theological conversation that lasted a couple of hours.  Mary's daughter Cori met us for lunch, and she's the one who took this photo of the three muskateers — I mean, the three book buddies.  If you click twice on these photos, you can enlarge them to see more details.  You may even be able to read the quote on my tee-shirt:

"Well behaved women rarely make history."

Another labyrinth

This morning, Donna and I walked another labyrinth.  This time, I was silent and Donna took a photo of me walking along after she had finished.  This is behind Burks United Methodist Church, which is about a mile from where we live, yet I didn't know it was there.

When I posted details on my book blog about walking the labyrinth at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Chattanooga, I got lots of comments.  Debra, a new friend I met a few months ago, left a comment with locations of several labyrinths in the Chattanooga area:

"Come walk the Labyrinth at Burks UMC.  It's in the back of the property.   It's open 24/7.  It's in the grass.  There are benches inside to sit down upon and benches on the exterior (there is a walking path along the exterior).   There used to be a holder with explanation, but the holder disappeared.  The literature is inside the church currently."

Before lunch, we drove to the church and found the labyrinth near where pre-school children were enjoying the outdoors.  Although we didn't go inside looking for the literature, we attracted the attention of a half dozen children who came to the fence near where we parked and waved at us.  That's my dark green Suburu Outback in the photo with the children in the distance, beyond one of the benches.

The pathway is made of chipped wood between grassy borders, and I saw lots of teensy-tiny mushrooms, some even in the middle of the path.  These along the path's edge are practically gigantic, compared to some I noticed.  I found the unevenness of the path disconcerting, probably because my bifocals blurred the leaves, woodchips, and mushrooms.  I felt myself sway a time or two, but Donna likes this labyrinth much more than the one in St. Paul's courtyard.

(For some reason, only some of the pictures will enlarge twice when you double-click on them.  If it works for you, you can see the uneven paths between grass.)