On Tuesdays, between now and April 14, I’ll be sharing excerpts from my new book, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church. The book is arranged around seven sacraments—baptism, confession, communion, holy orders, confirmation, anointing of the sick, and marriage—and today’s excerpt comes from the confirmation section and a chapter entitled “Wayside Shrines."

"The difference between a labyrinth and a maze is that a labyrinth has no dead ends. 

The famed eleven-circuit labyrinth inlaid in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France has just one path, which takes the pilgrim in and out of four quadrants in a spiraling motion through dozens of left and right turns, before reaching its rosette center. Such a pattern invites meditation, the mystics say, and reminds the pilgrim that the journey of faith is rarely a straightforward one. 

It has become cliché to talk about faith as a journey, and yet the metaphor holds. Scripture doesn’t speak of people who found God. Scripture speaks of people who walked with God. This is a keep-moving, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, who-knows-what’s-next deal, and you never exactly arrive. I don’t know if the path’s all drawn out ahead of time, or if it corkscrews with each step like Alice’s Wonderland, or if, as some like to say, we make the road by walking, but I believe the journey is more labyrinth than maze. No step taken in faith is wasted, not by a God who makes all things new."

Pre-order Searching for Sunday here. And check out this Pinterest board I made, which includes images that inspired me as I was writing the book and to which I'll be adding additional quotes and resources over the next few weeks.