What you mostly find on the pages of my blog are my thoughts, my reflections, my musings. This is first and foremost a space where I can process things that I think, where I can imagine things that may be, where I can follow feral ideas down rabbit holes and see what I find.
And as I sit here in front of my computer, fingers poised at the keyboard, awaiting an impulse, I wondered about the word ‘reflection’.
Reflection is a scientific process where energy (usually in our experience light but can also include sound, heat, etc) bounces off a smooth surface and is received by our eyes or a camera so that we can interpret them as an image of what is in front of the smooth surface. We talk about mirror images – seen in a mirror (unsurprisingly), a window, relatively still water, or the shiny surface of an object. The reflection is not identical as it is mirrored – so when we raise our right hand the mirror image looks like it’s raising the left hand. Our brains are used to processing mirror images so we don’t have any problem with interpreting what we see and, for example, touching our ear only looking at the reflection.
Reflection is also a process – pondering and considering a situation, experience, object or conversation and thinking about it in such a way that it may lead to a conclusion or new way of responding. We may do this on our own, or it may be that someone else will help us in the process of reflection, offering their own observations to augment our own or suggesting a different direction for our thoughts. We may simply think, or we may journal (or write bloggages), paint or otherwise create in response to those new thoughts.
I think what I do when I write my bloggages is a blend of the two. I certainly do the latter, but I am hoping that creative energy will bounce off what I am considering in such a way that I can see things differently, and I am changed by the experience.
I mostly use words because that’s the medium with which I am most comfortable. They form the foundations of my safe place, they are the primary tools of my calling and work.
But at the recent (silent) retreat I attended we were encouraged to consider other art forms in reflection. I’m not going to share what I drew and painted (not out of modesty but out of kindness to you). But one of the things we were encouraged to consider was creating a labyrinth for reflection, and Meg Wroe, who was leading that aspect of the retreat, gave us a simple way of creating a labyrinth.
Labyrinths are different from mazes as they only have one route into the middle (and back out) – there are no false trails or dead ends. Walking a labyrinth is a contemplative, prayerful process and many people find them helpful as a way of reflecting and encountering God. They’re not new, they have been around for centuries. For example, there is one that is similar to the one above that is in the floor of Chartres Cathedral in France, and was laid into the floor in the 12th century!
A while ago I found finger labyrinths. These have the same purpose as a walking labyrinth but take up far less space. I put one in the prayer space at the church I serve. It’s the same idea – take your time following the path. You could even draw or print one out on a piece of paper.
The journey in and out of a labyrinth is personal and individual. Nobody can walk it for you. As you journey, whether walking or tracing with your finger, think and pray about what the journey to the centre means for you. Are you carrying something you might leave at the centre. How are you different on the return journey? What does it represent?
What’s your reflection like?
Be blessed, be a blessing
nukelearfishing 
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