A year ago, I announced that 2014 would be my last season as the marathon training program director.  After four years of commitment to this demanding and rewarding volunteer effort, I was ready to invest my retirement energy in something else.  As the season draws to a close with next week's Missoula Marathon, I am still not sure what that "something else" might be.

Some days, I get all tied up in knots about it.  Should I shift my emphasis to writing?  Play and travel more?  Offer to serve on nonprofit boards? Take up drumming?  Resume the life-coaching practice I have allowed to languish?  With only a couple of years left in my seventh decade, the feeling of urgency is growing.  The clock is ticking, and I want to get it right.

So, what is "getting it right," anyway?  A few weeks ago, I visited the Red Sun Labyrinth in Victor, Montana.  The first time I saw it, I envisioned a maze:  Rats bouncing off dead ends in the search for cheese. Frustration. Claustrophobia.Trying, failing, and trying again.  I did not know at the time that a labyrinth is a whole different kind of puzzle than a maze.  It is a spiritual journey, not an intelligence test.

At Red Sun, the labyrinth is a lovely pattern etched in stones, surrounded by native landscaping.  It looks up to snow-capped mountains and down to pastures dotted with horses and cows. I enter through a gap in the circle and follow the path. Back and forth, around, in and out, around again. Eventually, I reach the center.The path, though complex, is trustworthy. It requires no learning. It is not frustrating. It leads unerringly to the center; then, in reverse, it leads safely and surely to the world beyond.  

My life sometimes feels like a maze.  I set goals and miss them; experiment and fail; fall and get up. In truth, however, those nearly 70 years have felt much more like a labyrinth than not.  Though the path has twisted and turned, I have always in retrospect, appreciated the direction it has took.  Though I may not have seen the goal until I got there, and it may not have looked like the end I had in mind, it has always been better than what I thought I wanted.

I have found that life, like a labyrinth, can be trusted.  I don't have to figure it all out.  I don't have to take control. I need only open my heart and confidently follow the spirit where it leads. I am curious and excited to see where it leads me next.

How do you experience the decisions that construct a path through your life?  Are you frustrated by dead ends, or confident that a wise inner guide leads safely to the unknown future?