At the Threshold

I was 36 when I became aware of my resistance to mystery. Unbeknownst to me, not knowing unnerved me. I wasn’t aware of my resistance to mystery until a roommate from the School of Spiritual Direction (SSD) shared with me after a week together that she believed I was addicted to processing. 

Hello to the courageous truth-tellers willing to hold up the mirror whatever the relational cost. 

I swiftly responded to her insight with, “I’ll have to process that.” 

We both laughed hysterically. If that wasn’t self-incriminating, what would be? Larry Crabb had taught us about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that week. I had never contemplated the name of the tree in the Garden of Eden which was the signpost of God’s goodness and provision. Nor had I pondered much Adam and Eve’s act of consuming its fruit. They wanted to be like God. They questioned His goodness and love for them and in so doing, they wanted to know rather than trust in His knowing. 

As I awoke to my addiction to processing, I awoke to the desires which fueled my overactive mind. I wanted control. As I pondered the rumblings which fueled my resistance to mystery, I realized that in my head I knew God was good and faithful and for me, but my practical theology of God was that He was going to hang me out to dry. It seems it’ll take a lifetime for my head, heart, and body to align. This all manifested in me by using excessive amounts of mental energy to figure out my moves and the moves of God and others in order to reduce my vulnerability to hurt and loss.  Yes, it was a terribly fatiguing way to live.

This knowing undergirded my resistance to being. Being requires presence, and I discovered that being in my head so much had limited my ability to be with others and with God. I later learned there’s a term for this place of unknowing—liminal space.

Liminal space

It’s the sacred space between the one that’s familiar and the unknown. Richard Rohr writes of liminal space, “All transformation takes place there. We have to move out of business as usual and remain on the threshold (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between. There, the old world is left behind, but we’re not sure of the new one yet. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible…in sacred space, the old world is able to fall apart, and the new world is able to be revealed. If we don’t find liminal space in our lives, we start idolizing normalcy. Here we are taught openness and patience as we come to expect an appointment with the divine Doctor.”  Over time, I learned that liminal space is an invitation to encounter God as in no other place. It is an invitation to stillness.

Be still and know that I am God.

The Hebrew word for still means “release your grip.” Liminal space has the potential to be the container in which we are pressured to release our grip. However, God will not force Himself on us but is continually inviting us to be filled with more of Him.

After many years of distancing myself from the impending emptiness which mystery brings through keeping my usual rhythms of busyness, I altered my rhythms. The Trinity was inviting me to taste and see them in a new way if I were to slow down and open myself to embrace the ache, longing, and emptiness offered me in the middle place of unknowing. Gratefully, this place of mystery eventually became the place where my ways and means of “making life work” for me were kindly untethered and I was freed to release my grip a bit more and rest deeper in the love of God.

When I open myself to God in liminal space, a healthy deconstruction of my ways, ideas, and judgments that short-circuit my capacity to love takes place. Even after years of practicing being, something in me still resists as I am ushered into liminality. As I live each day in the liminal space which Coronavirus has ushered in for everyone on earth, it is surreal to be alive during a time when the entire world is living in liminal space at the same moment in time. We may choose to open ourselves to God by resisting filling ourselves with our ways of seeking normalcy amidst the abnormal, or we may seek ways to fill ourselves with distraction from the emptiness which mystery brings.

God allows us the freedom to choose whether or not we will be transformed while in this liminal space. And, He’s just waiting for you to accept His invitation to be still, release your grip, and know that He is God more deeply in your soul than you’ve ever known.

What would you like to do with His invitation? What will it cost you to accept it or reject it? Explore your resistance as well as how you’re drawn to HIs invitation to be with Him in a unique way right now.