The Space Between

Thresholds are the space between, when we move from one time to another…

when our old structures start to fall away and we begin to build something new.  The Celts describe thresholds as “thin times or places” where heaven and earth re closer together and the veil between world is thin.

 

Thresholds are liminal times when the past season has come to a close but there is a profound unknowing of what will come next…  Thresholds are challenging because they demands that we step into the in-between place of letting go of what has been while awaiting what is still to come

                               Christine Valters Paintner (The soul’s slow ripening)

 

…when in the dark night of suffering sagacity cannot see a handbreadth ahead of it, then faith can see God, since faith sees best in the dark.

                               Soren Kierkegaard

 

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness  and streams in the wasteland.

                               Isaiah (43)

 

For whoever would save his/her life will lose it, but whoever loses his/her life for my sake will save it.

                               Jesus (Luke 9)

 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, that one is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

                               Paul (2 Corinthians)

___________________________________________

 

it feels as if I am an inhabitant of the world’s edge (Columbanus)

pushed by a chaotic and fiery world

to the brink

 

and here I teeter

scrambling for a toehold

for something to grab hold of, so that I do not fall

 

there is pain and sorrow behind me

but so much too that I do not want to leave behind

 

I am pushed by the raw brutality of toxic humanity

by the racism and infantile egoism of the Proud Boys,

the insatiable greed of the oligarchs,

the hypocrisy and deceit of our leaders,

the essential selfishness of those who cry “freedom”,

   but are slaves to their small selves,

 

I am assaulted by the brutality of children in cages

by the casual disregard of leaders who endanger those they lead

by the hypocrisy of those who gaslight and scapegoat

and think the rules they impose on others

do not apply to them

 

and yet there is comfort too

in things known

in old patterns

in old ways of thinking and being

 

and the terror of what is behind

is nothing like the terror of what lies ahead

beyond the threshold

 

in that dark space that looms beyond the edge

 

I do not want to let go

I do not want to take that step

that “leap of faith”

 

I would rather, it seems cling

miserably

to the small scraps of joy and comfort I have

 

and yet the words come

let go

 

the Kingdom is near

a Sacred “new thing” awaits

 

let go of your fear

let go of your hate

let go of the old

let go of the comfortable

let go of your old self

 

die

to all that holds you back

all that keeps you trapped

 

die

knowing that the moment you

die (let go of the old)

there will be birth

 

the new will emerge

slowly to be sure

as slowly as the dawn breaks through the darkness.

 

the Kingdom will come

but it must be born in each of us

and then lived by each of us

who seeing by faith in the dark

 

live hopefully

live love

and step faithful across the threshold

into God’s new thing

_______________________________

 

Thus says the Lord

Stand at the crossroads and look

          and ask for the ancient paths

Where the good way lies; and walk in it

          and find rest for your souls

                               Jeremiah 6:16