Liminal Times

5 y/o grandson:  I can’t wait for tomorrow!

Mom (my daughter):  What’s tomorrow?

5 y/o grandson:  Saturday! No School!

Mom: Do you have any idea what day it is?

5 y/o grandson:  Of course I don’t

                               #QuarantineLife 

“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.”

                                                   William Blake

When we find ourselves in liminal space, does it matter whether we are pushed or whether we jump? Either way, we are not where or what we were before, nor do we know how or where we will land in our new reality. We are, as the anthropologist Victor Turner (1920–1983) wrote, betwixt and between. In that space—which is mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual—we are destabilized, disoriented. The old touchstones, habits, and comforts are now past, the future unknown. We only wish such a time to be over. We may be impatient to pass through it quickly, with as little distress as possible, even though that is not likely. . . .

                                                   Sheryl Fullerton (quoted by Rohr, 4/29/20)

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Life is vague

Time is blurred

And we are in that liminal space

Between old normal and new normal

Waiting

For something to change

For resolution

We’d be happy if it felt like there were progress

Instead we are just in liminal space

Stuck in between

And it sucks

Really

It does

So we are angry

And scared

And impatient

We want to go to sleep until it’s all over

We want to push our way through

Rush our way through

Mostly we want to “get back” to normal

Which is really sad

Because normal was not all that great

Full of poverty

And racism

And injustice

And inequity

The reality is liminal space is sacred

for in this time

much can happen

this uncomfortable time can be

(with the help of the Spirit)

A time of creativity,

of construction

of deconstruction,

of transformation

so what will we do

with this unwanted gift?

perhaps all we can do

is what the people of Israel did

in that liminal space called the wilderness

follow the Sacred

one day

one step at a time

moving us away from what was

to what will be

to God’s new thing