We all have thresholds to cross- the transitions of a new job, home, role, family, age. The disorientation of loss and grief. The unsettling of questions, doubt, shifting paradigms breaking the known and comfortable. Perhaps life is really a perpetual crossing of thresholds...
What is the threshold that you see before you? What does it ask of you? What is its invitation? What do you need to step into its space?
As I have journeyed across numerous thresholds, there are a few practices that have become important guides, or (if we're really going to take this threshold image far) doorposts to lean on. Perhaps one or two of these will also offer you strength and centering as you cross your threshold.
Markers & Rituals
Threshold and transitions are a transforming force in our lives, whether we recognize them or not. There is a reason why our history, cultures, even Scripture are rich with rituals and ways of marking thresholds. I've found that I am able to live into the threshold more authentically if I allow myself to name it in some way. Sometimes this has meant giving myself time to reflect on the past season and what space I am entering. Sometimes it's a celebration. Sometimes it's adopting a certain prayer practice through the transition. This has become a way for me to pay attention to what is happening, and to what I need at that time.
Centering Symbols
Along with a marker of transition, I have also needed visual symbols that I am able to return to, to bring myself back to a bit of center amidst the chaos and disorientation of change. I've often carried a toy top in my pocket, to remind myself that the spinning will eventually become more steady and still. During this last move, I needed to have something familiar amidst the stacks of boxes, something that would draw me into prayer when my mind was anything but quiet. So I unpacked a figurine of a praying woman, a candle, and a prayer book- simple enough, but a place where I could escape the to-do list in the morning before I began my day.
Friends and Companions
As I look back across the thresholds, most have faces of friends and companions who were present with me. Some faces have stayed the same, others have changed. Either way, I have needed those friends to celebrate with me, to pack a few boxes, to listen as I vented my worries, to let me know that I am not alone, and mostly to remind me that it's okay to feel a little crazy when I'm standing in the middle of a threshold.
Grace
It is in the crossing of a threshold that I most often need grace, and usually I need to receive that grace from myself more than anyone. I'm still learning this one.... It's true- it is OKAY to feel a little crazy in the middle of a threshold. I've learned/ am learning that it is okay to let go of expectations of when I should have things done, what my life should look like, what I should be doing.... the list could go on. And I'm learning that there does not need to be a time limit to crossing thresholds. I have my whole life ahead of me. Perhaps what is most important is to pay attention to where I am now, instead of where I want to be.
The only way to come home is to cross the threshold before us. I'm not so sure anymore that this is because what we long for and desire is waiting on the other side, as we often try to convince ourselves. It is because it is in the threshold that we discover where we belong. It is in this place, the space in between, that we come to know ourselves. It is in this space between that we live in the mystery. It is here that we catch glimpses of God who lives behind us, before us, and, most deeply of all, in the in-between.
When we allow ourselves to live on the threshold,
to look out the window at the new thing before us,
to open ourselves to the questions,
to give ourselves the freedom to struggle,
to step into the pain that crosses our journey,
we enter into an opening for grace, love, healing, joy.
With each day we take a step across the threshold, or stretch a toe into this space in-between, we move into the space where God meets us, transforms us, heals us, makes us new. And one day, as we step around unpacked boxes and things waiting to be gathered into their places, we begin to see "home" again. As we look back to where we came from, we will see that we were given exactly what we needed, and through the threshold we are given grace for the journey before us.
I placed the praying figurine and candle that I mentioned above on a small table in an enclosed porch at the front of my house. Beside it is a rocking chair that my parents gave my grandparents to rock me as an infant, and my grandparents then gave to me- a reminder that I am loved and cared for. I sit here with my coffee some mornings to watch the neighborhood come awake and pray for the coming day. This has been the place where I can let go of the boxes that still need to be unpacked and the projects that still need to be done and everything else that is calling for my attention, and return to the reason I entered this place- to live as a sign of God's love and hope. As I was pondering this transition, it struck me just yesterday that this space of prayer and centering is literally on the threshold of my new home.
The Spirit knows what we need long before we understand the depths of its truth. The Spirit will guide us through.
May you carry this blessing with you into the threshold.
May it give you the vision to name this new place.
May it give you courage to step into this space.
May it be your companion through the struggle.
May it give you strength to lean on.
May it draw you into your center.
May it be the measure of grace you need to be here.
May it lift your eyes and open your heart to mystery.
May it surround you, enfold you, flow within you.
May it lead you into the presence of God,
who waits for you
on the threshold.
And if you need a friend along the way, come on over. We'll make some tea and sit together on the threshold.
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