"WE’LL just go in here, so that you can say you’ve been, but it’s very simple. It’s absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the right. We’ll just walk around for ten minutes, and then go and get some lunch."

Some of you might recognise the words of Harris, from Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat as he stood at the entrance to Hampton Court Maze. You may also remember what subsequently happened to his group – they were lost in the maze for hours!

But, after all, that is the purpose of a maze, to deceive the walker into taking dead-end paths, to lose them in the complexities of the maze design. It is very different from a labyrinth’s one path which, although it meanders inwards and outwards, will lead you into the centre and safely back out again.

Civilisations around the world have used the labyrinth as a spiritual pathway for meditation and prayer and there is a long history of labyrinth use in Christianity.

In medieval times, when pilgrimage to Jerusalem became an extremely dangerous undertaking, labyrinths sprang up in cathedrals such as Chartres and pilgrims would journey on these ‘Roads to Jerusalem’ as a substitute.

We in Kildwick have our own labyrinth on the church green, visible only during Lent and Eastertide as its way-markers are spring bulbs. Many people walk our labyrinth for many reasons – it’s free to everyone and all are welcome.

The fact that no decisions must be made, the path need only be followed, frees the mind for contemplation, prayer, refreshment and means one can get "lost" in a way impossible in a maze.

As the poet John O’Donohue says: "When you travel, a new silence goes with you, and if you listen you will hear what your heart would love to say. A journey can become a sacred thing."

If your journeyings over Holy Week and Easter bring you to Kildwick, do take the time to walk the labyrinth, but wherever you go, may you travel safely, arrive refreshed and return in joy.

The Rev Robin Figg

Vicar of Kildwick