HISTORY OF THE FATHER'S HEART LABYRINTH
At the Healing Presence Christian Retreat, Point Pleasant, PE
As told by Jim Wilson in 2023
How the Star of David Came into Being
The Star of David and the Father's Heart Labyrinth are integrally connected in their conception, although they are separated somewhat by time—2000 and 2001. Their story began in the late 1990's when my beautiful wife, Barbara, and I moved from our home in Mount Denson in the Annapolis Valley to Halifax. Having lost our greenhouse business and home, we were living in an apartment in Clayton Park. Things were rather bleak and in my reading of the Scriptures there were a lot of similarities between my life and Job's life and also David's life. I often described my situation as being in the "caves of Adullam", as David was at one period in his life when he sought refuge from King Saul.
A few years previously a person respected as being prophetically gifted came to our home and prophesied to me that I was to study the life of David. So in my state of mind and circumstances I began to read everything the Bible said about David. I was encouraged to see that the current events in my life had a lot of similarities to those that David experienced, having lost everything and yet still being pursued by the forces in power. I was desperately calling out to God, "Jesus, help me." Having completed my study of David, the thought entered my mind to commemorate this journey by erecting a monument as a symbol, such as the Israelites often did when they gained a crucial victory in their lives. So I asked the Lord what I should choose as a symbol of my journey through the Scriptures with David. He said, "Make a Star of David symbol and make it out of trees."
The most logical site for tree planting at the time was the Healing Presence Retreat Centre at Point Pleasant, PEI, which Barbara and I had been operating since 1994. In the fall of 1998, as a keepsake I had taken 200+ acorns from the English oak tree we had planted in our front lawn at Mount Denson over 20 years previously. I brought them to Healing Presence and planted them in a 3 ft. by 3 ft. bed which I dug up in the Sanctuary at the top of the hill. By the spring of 1999 these acorns had sprouted and grown to be 5 to 8 inches tall. So, amazingly, here were the trees already available to me that I could plant to commemorate my study of the life of David.
During the winter of 1999 I spent many hours designing the Star of David, assisted by my son, Andrew, who was studying Engineering at Dalhousie and was living with us in our Halifax apartment. In May 2000 Andrew and I mowed the bushes and staked out the location of the two overlapping equilateral triangles that make up the Star of David. I dug up the seedlings and separated them by size. I can still remember discussing with Andrew how far apart we should plant the trees. Ten feet seemed too far and 5 feet too close, so we decided on 7 feet apart, at the time not realizing that the number 7 was very significant because it is the number symbolizing completion and perfection in Hebrew in the Old Testament. This meant each side of the point of the star needed 7 trees—7 × 7 equals 49 feet on a side. Each point of the star needed 14 trees and there being 6 points, we planted a total of 84 trees, covering an area of approximately 1 acre. I mixed up a peat moss mixture and, with Andrew and Barbara's help, a measured amount of this mixture was placed in 84 holes 9 inches deep and 6 inches in diameter. One of the English oak seedlings was carefully placed in each hole. English oaks have the characteristic of keeping their leaves all year round which we felt symbolized the verse that "they will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord that He may be glorified" (Is 61:3 NASB) and "the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" (Rev 22:2 NIV).
How The Father's Heart Labyrinth Came into Being
In the winter of 2000–2001, the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper featured weekly articles on spiritual sites in the world and when it came to Christianity it featured labyrinths, as labyrinths were often found at monasteries and on the floors of large cathedrals, such as the Chartres Cathedral in France. The labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral was a destination for pilgrims in the Middle Ages, many of them invalids seeking healing for their diseases and afflictions. Essentially, walking a labyrinth is a spiritual meditative journey to the centre and back out again. It is not a maze which has dead ends. Rather, it is a pathway with many different twists and turns which lead into the centre.
Still thinking about the Star of David we had planted the previous spring, the thought came to me that perhaps a labyrinth could fit in the centre of the Star. Barbara and I began to research the various designs for labyrinths throughout the world. We wanted to create our own design and we eventually decided on a labyrinth with seven pathways to the centre with the centre in the shape of a heart—to symbolize the believer's journey into the Heart of God. In our design, the labyrinth begins at the point of 7 feet inside the inner point of the star. It has 7 concentric pathways. Each of the seven pathways symbolizes one aspect of the "Seven-fold Spirit of God" from Isaiah 11. These are presence, wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and reverence (awe).
The seven pathways are 5 feet apart. The number 5 symbolizes "Grace". The number 5 is connected with the Hebrew letter Hei or He, which is the fifth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In Hebrew the number 5 means "to look" or "to behold". The Bible itself does not specify meaning to number 5, but Biblical scholars generally consider number 5 to represent God's grace, mercy, and favour since the number 5 is especially prevalent in the shape and size of the altar for offerings to the Lord, which was made to be 5 cubits square. This altar represents the mercy and grace of God. These 7 pathways 5 feet apart equal 35 feet, allowing a 14 ft. diameter circle in the centre. Our labyrinth is 84 feet in diameter. The length of the journey from the beginning to the centre is over 1000 feet.
The centre was made in the shape of a heart as I had recently been to Saint John to a Worship Conference where Ruth Fazal sang a song about being inside the Heart of God. While she was singing, I had a conscious vision of being inside the Father's Heart. The turns in the Father's Heart labyrinth are in the shape of uplifted hands in worship. Andrew and I made up a plan of exactly where to plant the tree seedlings to outline the pathways. We decided to use 700 Norway spruce seedlings 6 inches tall, which we planted during the long weekend in May in 2001. The trees were planted 2 feet apart. Barbara and I were assisted by a group of friends from the Community Church on the Dalhousie Campus which we were attending at the time. They were Carl and Kathy Jobin and their three children, Joshua, Miriam and Charles; Anne Marie and Jim Sutherland; Carol Purdy and Joyce Saunders.
There was a local plane that took tourists on flights around Murray River at the time and we noticed that the plane often flew over the labyrinth and lingered for a time. We were also visited by several different Christian ministries as well as a Messianic Jewish group. Barbara sensed that it was important to convey from the air that the Father's Heart labyrinth was a Christian site, so she suggested that we place a cross in the centre of the Heart. The 8 ft. by 6 ft. cross was made from 4x4 lumber placed horizontally in the centre of the Heart. It allows the seeker to rest in the Father's presence and receive His healing love. Underneath the cross at the exact centre of the Heart, located 6 inches below the surface, is a maple leaf taken from a tree on Healing Presence placed on top of a fig leaf that had been collected in Israel by a group of Canadians returning from a ministry trip to Israel, led by Pastor Andrew Bryce from Summerside, in 2002. A 10 inch galvanized spike that we had used to mark the centre of the labyrinth during its construction was removed, the leaves were put in place, and the spike was driven through the leaves, accompanied by a time of prayer, to symbolize the spiritual connection between Canada and Israel.
We registered The Father's Heart Labyrinth with the website called www.labyrinthlocator.com in 2008. This is a database created in 2004 of labyrinths around the world. Currently it contains more than 6250 labyrinths in more than 90 different countries. Our labyrinth is one of four labyrinths currently registered in PEI. Over the years, we have had several visitors who have found our labyrinth on this website and subsequently made an appointment to walk the labyrinth. Everyone is welcome!