Ag Siúl na Mbabhtaí

The seventh Celtic practice is the ancient form of prayer called Walking the Rounds. Think, for a moment, about the common elements in most Celtic symbols. Most often the circles are not always round but are always circuitous, starting in one place and winding around in a predictable design l eventually returning to the starting point. If you follow the path that brings you back to the start, you have the first ingredient of how to Walk the Rounds.

Traditionally, Walking the Rounds took one around a sacred or holy place, a place with significance like a graveyard or holy well. There is another interesting addition that holds the walk must always be in a clockwise direction so that the walk always follows the path of the sun. This is something new to me but it makes perfect sense when you consider that the Celts always sought to be in step with nature. To go with the sun is to keep the light in front of you to shine on your journey and if the sun is the center of all things, you are aligned with the center of all creation.

This might be interesting to hear about but it does not seem to have much of consequence to us today. Why would this be a practice of use to us in our modern spiritual practice? Walking in a circle seems pointless if we think our mission is to get from one place to another. A journey has to have a purpose, a destination, right? Otherwise why bother leaving? How many times do we have to be reminded it is all about the journey? The destination is no place we can reach during human years but we keep deluding ourselves into thinking we can choose where we go when in fact we can only choose the direction.

Remember the Holiness talk? To be holy requires only that we turn to God and orient ourselves to go towards Him. It is what we do on the voyage and the character of our travel that is important. We can choose how we travel.

Instead of scripture reading for today the lyrics of an old Harry Chapin song haunt my thoughts so I will share the words with you.

All my life's a circle;

Sunrise and sundown;

Moon rolls through the nighttime;

'Til the daybreak comes around.

All my life's a circle;

But I can't tell you why;

Season's spinning round again;

The years keep rollin' by.

It seems like I've been here before;

I can't remember when;

But I have this funny feeling;

That we'll all be together again.

No straight lines make up my life;

And all my roads have bends;

There's no clear-cut beginnings;

And so far no dead-ends.

He hit the nail on the head.  No straight lines make up our lives, all of our roads have bends and we have no clear cut beginning or end.

When we walk around a holy place, we always come back to where we began but it is never the same place. The circle is really a spiral goes round and round but sometimes we are higher up or further down but never back to the exact same place.

Still, where are we going with this that is relevant for today? Let's revisit the journey around a holy center. What are we do when we discern? We consider something of importance, significance, something that might even change the arc of our lives. The process causes us to travel around what is being discerned, to examine it from all sides. If we are in true discernment, we make a journey around several times and we continue until we have seen the decision from every side.

We can walk the rounds around many things, some important, others not so much but others of life-altering importance. As we walk God accompanies us and he does so without bidding but there is no value unless we remind ourselves we walk in his presence and to ask for his help. Following the sun reminds us to walk in the light he shines for us. It illuminates our path as we make our way around until we see what we are intended to see and our discernment is complete.

The idea of circles is nothing new to us. Think of encircling prayer. Walking the rounds is really to walk in prayer, everything comes together in completion that has no real beginning or end.

The beauty of this is that we can physically and spiritually walk the rounds and one will support the other. How many times have we taken a walk when making a difficult decision. For me the number is without measure.