Wednesday, March 28, 2007

A definition of Liminal

I have my stuff strewn between two rooms. A new guy is moving into my house and where I used to sleep there is a TV, a mattress, a couch and an empty dresser. That's not my space anymore. Nothing is where I can find it. I heard my cell phone beep for a message last night and I realized that I had no idea whether my phone was upstairs or downstairs. I found it in a pile of junk things that had to still be moved.

I can't find my journal; the important one with all my notes from January first until yesterday; the one with all the really personal notes about what I feel God is calling me to, and how Michelle broke my heart; the one with a whole bunch of scraps of paper and airplane tickets. I know that in that journal holds a note from January 1 where Jenn McAffe jotted down prophetic words someone spoke to me in encouragement. There stories of my life being changed by people, some of which I will never remember any other way. What a shame it would be to loose it at a coffee shop.

I came across this word 'liminal'. First it was in a sermon, then I started hearing it as the root of subliminal and finally in a book. The book is Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr. There's a passage where he talks about getting to liminal space and getting there often as a way to experience God. According to Mr. Rohr (Or is it brother Rohr?) getting to liminal space and doing this very often is one of the best things things you could ever do for your spiritual walk.

With the word coming up so much, sounding like a godly thing and fitting my situation I started to use the word. It's become a bit of an inside Joke between Justin and I. We're both heading toward huge, unreal changes in our lives. We say things offhandedly like "Dude, I'm so liminal right now," meaning we are finding ourselves immersed in change and the consequences of exiting the realm of normal.

The problem is that when you're liminal nothing is exactly how you want it.

In fact I'm so up in the air right now that I just want something to be normal again. Right now I think very fondly of how things "were". Every new change from buying tires to being told an attractive female friend is dating someone becomes stressful. Our church announced a new campaign on prayer and I got angry about it for a while without a clear reason for my emotions.

I second guess every purchase wondering if "God really wants me to buy this" because I have so little cash right now. Some things I buy anyway because I feel they'll make things easier to deal with.

There are moments when the move to Maui itself is up to debate. I will be talking to someone and freeze up with a miniature anxiety attack. In under a second I hear a complete paragraph of reasons I must have misheard God in the calling to go.

But by far the best example was yesterday when I was getting a haircut. I didn't even really know how to ask Ja Quice for what I wanted. "A lot shorter than this" is all I said which in my head would translate "No clippers, long scissor cut, thin it out."

Or in other words, "The way it used to be." Never mind that she's only cut my hair once.

The first thing she grabbed was a set of clippers. I was so distracted by everything in my head I didn't even notice until she was about five passes into the back of my head with long hair hanging over an open expanse of what, at the time, looked like nothing.

I froze. I wanted her to stop. I wanted to tell her she was doing it all wrong. I wanted my shaggy hair back. At this point, because we were already committed to something that I wasn't prepared for she was the only one who was going to know what to do next. So I was silent ( as a sheep before it's shearers) and she finished up.

It looks fine.

Later Fraaza showed up and interrupted my workout. Another change and, no, I wasn't pleasantly surprised. I almost asked him to leave after a polite amount of time. I wanted to get back to my routine. Thankfully I again said nothing. And we began this conversation about something brave he's stepping into. The result was one of the more refreshing conversations I've had in a while.

One of the sermons I heard about the word 'liminal' said that on the way out of Egypt and into the promised land there was this time of in-between. It lasted 40 years. In that time and place the dessert -- the liminal space -- was home and there was a lot of following a cloud and a fire. A lot of doubt. A lot of snakes and heat. A lot of grumbling.

But that dessert is dear to the Hebrews. They call it God's land. They trace their heritage to this wandering Aramean named Abraham and they recite the stories of the dessert as law and identity. In that dessert they ate things they didn't know, drank water from rocks and got to know a God no other nation had known. When prophets would preach and when God would show His passionate, lover's rage there would often be a reminder of that dessert.

And into that dessert Jesus went. The Father had just told Him how much He loved Him and the first place Jesus went was the dessert.

I've heard people teach that Jesus was in the wilderness because "After a great experience of God (baptism) we'll be plunged into a dessert temptation," as if Jesus was there by accident or mistake. But that answer doesn't make sense anymore in liminal space.

When you're in liminal space you understand that Jesus went there on purpose.

posted by Scott # 4:00 PM

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