Liminal Spaces
Megan Clark, M.A., LCMHCA
“Limen” is the Latin word for “threshold.” Therefore liminal spaces are “threshold spaces” in life. They are the time in between where we were and where we will be, who we were and who we will be, individually and as a people. They are most often not chosen by us, but are pressed upon us by external circumstances of loss and change.
“In entering liminal space you leave behind your former ideals and conventions, the status quo, the ordinary routines, inherited mindsets. You also leave behind your safety zone; you exit your place of security. You step out into a space where you will see things differently, where your world view might be shattered, where your existing priorities might be turned upside down. You cross a border and go beyond your usual limits. What had been a barrier now becomes a stepping stone into a larger spiritual adventure. The liminal spaces into which Jesus leads us are places of radical unmaking and unlearning – uncomfortable spaces where we are called to be utterly vulnerable to God, and from which we will re-enter the world (transformed). The limen is the place of departure, a springboard into a fresh way of doing things.”
Author and spiritual director Andrew Mayes (as quoted in https://www.wpc.org/uploads/sermons/pdf/August31Jones2014.pdf):
Many of us (all of us?) find ourselves in a liminal space right now. We are in the midst of a pandemic and do not know when it will end or how it will end for ourselves and those we love. This makes some of us so uncomfortable, we choose to go on with normal life as if there was no pandemic. Likewise, we live in the midst of great racial turmoil and political unrest. This makes some of us so uncomfortable, we turn away and pretend racial inequality does not exist. We pretend all are treated equally and our country does not need to change in this regard. Maybe, instead of ignoring the liminal space and rushing past it, or even fighting against it, we could look for the invitation in it? Maybe this space is a gift, a time to examine our lives, to better understand ourselves, to learn to understand others who are different from us, to allow God to birth something new in us. Maybe this liminal space could even give birth to something we never could have otherwise imagined.
“Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom - but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written:
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.
But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.”
