We are often too functional and rational to seek what the ancients sought above all, namely, that space between the comfortable old way and what will replace it.

    Drawing on the work of Victor Turner, Richard Rohr writes about the importance of initiation rites in the survival of primitive people.  These rites of passage provided time between the familiar practices being left behind and the new way yet to be embraced.  The puberty rites of males and females are examples, where the young are taken out of the familiar and spend time apart, being initiated into adulthood.  They leave as young people beginning puberty and return to their community as adults. Turner calls this in-between time ‘liminal space,’ from ‘limina,’ the Latin word for ‘threshold’.

     We have examples from our time.  Postulants and novices in Religious Life experience a lengthy period when they are removed from their familiar way of life but aren’t yet accepted into their new community.  When they make Final Profession, after a number of years in liminal space, they become fully integrated into a religious community.  

     For most of us, only pain is now strong enough to lead us into this space which Victor Turner calls ‘liminal’ and  Mircea Eliade calls ‘sacred,’ as distinct from the profane space which we usually inhabit. Human beings hate to be in this ‘betwixt and between’ time. They try to run away from it, fill up the emptiness with much activity, or rationalize it to place themselves in control again.  In liminal space we are not in control.  The paradox is, that if we do face the emptiness, we can feel vulnerable and unsure, but also feel indestructible. That’s because we are grounded around one undeniable reference point.  We are drawn in a magnetic pull to the ‘tree of life’ that connects heaven and earth, the ‘axis mundi’ of the ancients.  Believers call it God. Richard Rohr writes, “Liminal space is a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be, but where the biblical God is always leading them …Think of Israel in the desert, Joseph in the pit and Jonah in the belly of the whale.” 

     For some of us, our old certainties are taken away by having to face terminal illness,

others lose their jobs at an age when re-employment is not a credible option, some are too old to continue looking after themselves and must go into care, many experience personal or family tragedies and still others, catastrophic natural disasters. Suffering is the most efficient means of transformation and God makes use of it whenever God can.  Grief has unparalleled power to open our eyes and our hearts, but only if we are patient over the long haul.

     It is hard to live with uncertainty and anxiety – to trust and to wait.  Few people choose to walk on this narrow road because it is a very hard place in which to find oneself.  It is difficult to wait on the threshold.

   This time is valuable because maybe for the first time we can see beyond self-interest, self-will and personal security.  It is truly a sacred space where we can allow an alternative consciousness to emerge. We begin to see things with different eyes.
     The Persian poet, Hafiz, is quoted by Richard Rohr,

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.