What is liminal space?
Think: “Change” and “Disruption”
The word “liminal” comes from the Latin word limens, meaning literally, "threshold."
A liminal space, the place of transition, waiting, and not knowing is…a unique spiritual position where human beings hate to be but where the biblical God is always leading them. It is when you have left the tried and true, but have not yet been able to replace it with anything else. It is when you are finally out of the way. It is when you are between your old comfort zone and any possible new answer. If you are not trained in how to hold anxiety, how to live with ambiguity, how to entrust and wait, you will run…anything to flee this terrible cloud of unknowing.
- Richard Rohr
These thresholds of waiting and not knowing our "next" are everywhere in life and they are inevitable. Each ushers in a new chapter of life, and each holds varying degrees of disruption. Whether it is graduation, a new job and career, being overwhelmed by debt, new homes, new cities, marriage, divorce, sickness, life stages (i.e., having kids), changing friendships - all will disorient us for a while, regardless of our awareness during the transition.
And the most common question individuals ask in this place is:
"Now what?"
Really, there are far better questions than “now what?” It’s an okay question to be asking, but it carries with it the dangerous assumption that there is one clear answer, and it should have presented itself by now.
RARELY is this true. RARELY is it that simple.
And the main reason why there could never be just one clear answer to the “now what” questions? Because change never exists in a box, no matter how hard we might try to contain it. Change in one area of life always ripples into others disrupting the status quo there. As much as we like to structure our lives as though community, spirituality, vocation, relationships, our physical bodies, friendships and emotions exist mutually exclusive from one another, they do not.
When we believe that there is one clear answer we often miss the real potential for our formation in the “in-between” places.
And when we become aware of our own liminality, most of us, if we're honest, don't know who to be or how to navigate it. And yet, we have developed ways of moving through transitions - patterns and behaviors - which have either been generative or degenerative to our development and the formation of our future.
Regardless of the change, our volition is intact; we have a say in how we will transition. Those who move best through a formative liminal space always have other sets of eyes on their life to serve as guides. It’s really about having the right accompaniment to help you see what you can’t see, challenge assumptions and narrowed perspectives, discover new truths, encourage, care and assist in any way possible to help get you through your “in-between.”