Perched in my chair where I spend my first waking minutes each morning, I am neither fully awake yet, nor fully asleep, but somewhere in between.
The world outside my window matches my consciousness or I match its. It’s not night any longer, but it isn’t yet fully day. I love it when the light finally dawns.
Liminal space is the time in between what used to be, and what has not yet come. It is a transitional time, a time when you know you can’t go back to what used to be and yet, you don’t know for sure what is coming.
Liminal space, from the Latin "limen," means threshold, a time when you have to wait until things unfold, as surely as you have to wait for night to turn to day.
Liminal space can be terrifying and disorienting for those who need to know what is next, and for those who have to be in control. Liminal space can be a short length of time, or it can sometimes drag on for an unbearably long time, testing our patience almost beyond endurance.
It can also be a time of transformation, of healing, of liberation and empowerment.
Some of us freeze when we find ourselves in the discomfort of not knowing much of anything for sure.
We become unable to move, trapped as we are in the old and trite paralysis of analysis. Some of us freeze our minds with denial and avoidance of accepting the normal and natural processes of transitioning from one stage of life into another.
Others of us try to fight our way through the clouds of unknowing, convinced that if we work hard enough, run fast enough or lash out fiercely enough, the angst of the unfamiliar territory we are in will subside.
We try to talk our way out of it, blame others for it or bludgeon the outer world with attacks and insults, forgetting that anger only creates more disturbance.
And some of us flee, hoping to escape the challenge of the day with a new job, new spouse, a new house or different friends. How we hope to get far-away from the uncomfortable liminal state, which could be seen as a bridge or an opening, instead of an abyss or a closed door.
As a lifelong participant in the Christian faith, moving into the season of Advent to wait for Christmas has always been a peaceful, mysterious and joyful time of expectancy.
And yet, in a sense, this season can also be seen as a liminal space between what the old ways, customs, values and traditions of a culture that is in chaos and the new way that lies ahead.
Who knows if what lies ahead will be wonderful and even glorious or as perilous and scary as some predict?
So it is that as I walk into yet another observance of the four Sundays of Advent, I find myself in a serious liminal space.
Much of my life will be different from the way it has been all of my life, and I confess that the reality causes me some anxiety. I’ve liked my life as it has been and am not so sure I want to give it up, and yet here I am, suspended in liminality.
And yet, if I believe what I have declared and tried to live for all of my life, then I’m going to take these four weeks and affirm my confidence in the One whose idea it was to give us Christmas.
My lifelong faith asks and even demands of me to affirm the spiritual graces of Hope, Love, Joy and Peace, no matter how dark or scary or chaotic the outer world appears to be.
Just as the birth of the Christ child signaled an end to one era and the beginning of another, the four Sundays of Advent invite me to stir my capacity to live those graces one day at a time and to offer those graces as a gift to other fellow pilgrims who may be struggling through a liminal space like I am.
Liminal spaces may be dark, but I have heard that the night is always darkest right before the day. I’m counting on the Light to lead me forward, from what used to be, to what will be.
Jeanie Miley is a former San Angelo resident, and an inspirational author and speaker. Her column appears Saturdays. Email her at jeaniemiley19@aol.com.
"waiting" - Google News
November 30, 2019 at 06:06PM
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Waiting for events to unfold naturally a source of great anxiety - Standard-Times
"waiting" - Google News
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