Living in Liminal Space
NOTE: This was originally published in our bi-weekly e-newsletter, Liminal Spaces. To get future issues delivered to your inbox, sign up here.
As we approach the end of this truly wild year, we offer up some personal reflections in this final issue of 2020. We’d love to hear your own reflections as well. Feel free to comment below, we’ll read every word :)
Gary Alan
I guess it’s fitting that on the bleakest day of the year, I’m pausing to reflect on 2020, a year that descended into darkness for all of us living in the shadow of death. For me, things moved from bad to worse in almost liturgical procession. The global pandemic was followed by a loss of employment, economic anxiety, and the severing of long-time relationships. I feel like someone picked me up, turned me over, and shook every last drop of identity, worth, and value out of my body. I feel so empty.
Our spiritual ancestors knew the feeling; they even had a word for it. Kenosis is the process of letting go of ego, attachments, and identity on the journey toward personal transformation. But it’s not easy, and a rarely chosen path, which is why suffering has to almost be forced upon us if we are ever going to change.
Just a few nights ago, I went up to my room, shut the door, and in anger prayed, “What else do you want God? I have nothing left to give!” But an ounce of the old me must still be in there, waiting to be poured out.
So in surrender, I am learning to accept this season of purgation as a needful step on the path toward spiritual transformation. I don’t like it. I wish it would end. I want to be filled up, not emptied out. But you can’t pour new wine into old wineskins, which means on some level my old container, this old self, needs to be replaced before I am hopefully filled to the brim with something new.
Melanie
Talk about liminal spaces. This year has been one after another for me (or maybe just one long one, not sure). Beyond the things that have made 2020 hard for most of us, I’ve also experienced tremendous amounts of upheaval, instability, uncertainty, self-doubt, frustration, disillusionment, judgment, anxiety, and even depression in my life—things I’ve never faced in such close proximity or magnitude before. At the same time, I’ve also experienced triumph, trust, facing past hurt and trauma, healing, love, kindness, hope, inordinate provision, and comfort.
My 2020 is not a year of disappointment OR triumph, instability OR comfort; it’s both. AND.
Yes, it’s been a year of whiplash.
And as I try to accept 2020 for what it was while also desperately hoping to leave it behind, I can’t help but wonder where to go from here. I have no clue. By definition, liminal spaces are the times between, when we can’t go back but we can’t see the way forward. And I haven’t been able to see the way forward for quite some time now.
It seems all I can do is focus on things like continuing to heal, to deconstruct, to reconstruct, to break free from manipulation and judgment—and hope that, in time, the way will be revealed.
If I’m honest with myself, that’s all I have the strength to pray or hope for right now: that the Way will be revealed.
Amen.
WE NEED YOUR HELP TO CONTINUE OUR WORK
When we set out on this venture of creating a welcoming, safe place to ask questions, be vulnerable, and explore the depths of faith, we didn’t know what to expect, but we felt that God was calling us to this work. We believed in it so much that we sacrificed much to make it happen. Now, nine months later, we have been overwhelmed by the response. So many of you have reached out in gratitude. We see this as confirmation not that we are anything special, but that God is at work.
So it is with humility that we ask you to help us continue. If something we’ve produced has helped you to understand God, yourself, others, or creation better, will you consider making a year-end donation by clicking the button below so that we can keep the lights on and continue to help you and others like you? Or if you know someone who would understand our mission and is in a position to help fund it, would you consider connecting us with them? The Sophia Society exists for you, but also because of your generosity and support. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your help!
WHAT WE'RE READING/LISTENING TO
Melanie
Reading: Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence by Sarah Moslener
Listening to: Light Has Come: Christmas by Future of Forestry and (no shame here) A Christmas Album by Amy Grant
Gary Alan
Reading: Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey
Listening to: A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio
Rape survivors need speech to recover--to tell the story of their harm, to rebuild their sense of self and their place in the world. But the words available to them often fail to describe their experience of the violation.