In the movie Castaway, a frantically busy, high powered FedEx executive, Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, is the sole survivor of a plane crash at sea and finds himself marooned on a desert island. No smartphone, no diary, no 24/7 lifestyle, no flash restaurants, no stock-market or work deadlines. No longer does he have endless appointments and meetings — no busyness, nothing.
In an instant his whole reality is gone and he finds himself in a totally alien place — A desert island wilderness. And he has absolutely no knowledge or skills or capacity to navigate this new reality.
Four years pass, and Chuck eventually acclimatises. He actually learns, not just to survive, but to thrive on his island. He is tanned and healthy and confident. His only companion is Wilson the volley-ball, with face painted on.
When eventually he is rescued and brought back into the never-ending busyness and stressfulness and sophistication of the modern world, he can’t cope. It’s like OUR modern world has now become the wilderness and he is continually bewildered about how to navigate the craziness of big-city life.
There are seasons in life where the known world we’ve lived in seems to end and we find ourselves in the wilderness — on a desert island as it were. And none of our skills and habits and coping mechanisms and maps work.
And we find ourselves deeply disoriented! It’s very stressful! It’s deeply disconcerting! It’s exhausting, because we need to learn how to survive, let alone thrive, from scratch. And often we’re not even sure how to go about that.
We become like Tom Hanks stranded on his remote island.
These sorts of times or places are called “Liminal” experiences.
The word, “Liminal” comes from a Latin word limen, which means the threshold of a door.
Standing on the threshold of a doorway, you are neither in the living room nor the kitchen. You are in-between. When you are experiencing liminality, one season has left you behind, but the next season hasn’t got to you yet.
I can remember, many years ago, getting to Orlando airport in Florida, at about three in the morning! I had been travelling from Melbourne for thirty hours and was absolutely exhausted. I could feel all the caffeine I’d been drinking, pumping through my veins.
I got my rental car, set up my GPS device, put my suitcase in the boot, and promptly got in what I thought was the drivers seat, but, no, the steering wheel was on the right hand side.
That next 30 minute drive was so hard. The handbrake and gearstick and mirrors were all wrong! I had to stop at the end of the airport car park and think: “So, which lane do I go in?” And how do I turn left from the centre lane?”
Of course, a day or so later, I had learned to think ‘back-to-front’ and driving became second nature again. I had gone from being:
Well-oriented to being dis-oriented and then finally I had new orientation.
I’d moved from a safe space to a transitional space and finally to a new space.
That dis-orientation space in the middle — that’s liminal space.
You experience it when you live in foreign culture for some time. Or when you learn a new language!
Liminality comes with the grief you feel, when someone close to you dies; Or a serious illness that demands a new way of being. It comes to a refugee fleeing from a war or famine; being the victim of a bushfire or flood. Losing a long-term job.
Our modern world can feel like permanent liminality! Everything we thought was nailed down keeps changing; keeps changing. We live with permanent stress because the 24/7 world is never still long enough for us to re-acclimatise.
We’ve had a ‘pandemic’ of stress and fear long before we had a Corona-virus pandemic! We have been alert and alarmed for years.
And then of course, recent current viral and economic pandemic feels like a liminal space, doesn’t it? Maybe we can never go back to the world the way it was.
Maybe, like Tom Hanks castaway on the Island, many of our plans and dreams are no better than those soggy Fedex packages -- and what's true of us as individuals is true of the life of the church.
That feeling of disorientation is part of being in the liminal space!
Spiritual formation writers remind us that the wilderness of the “liminal space” is the place where we have come to the end of ourselves and God where meets us and leads us into God’s (unexpected) future for us.
Our tendency is to run when we’re in a liminal space, but we need to stay there, slow down, and wait and grow through it. Someone once told me that often the best intercession we can do, is to pray for grace to stay with our liminal place.
The book of Lamentations describes how Jeremiah the prophet who had lived in, and loved the city of Jerusalem, responds after 586Bc when the Emperor Nebuchadnezzar invades it, and destroys it, and carries away its leaders to the far flung empire of Babylon.
Everything! The way-of-life and the daily sacrifices, the Temple and the very world order is gone!!
Jeremiah as he sits, writes this in Lamentations [NRSV] chapter 3
“… 5 he has besieged and enveloped me with bitterness and tribulation; 6 he has made me sit in darkness, like the dead of long ago.7 He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has put heavy chains on me; 8 though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; 9 he has blocked my ways with hewn stones, he has made my paths crooked…..”
Ever feel like that? That’s liminal space! That’s disorientation!
But then down to verse 21 - the first glimmer of hope - of “new Orientation.”
“… 21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; 23 they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. 26 It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. ….”
31 “… For the Lord will not reject forever. 32 Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; 33 for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone….”
40 “… Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord. 41 Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands to God in heaven….”
In what ways do with process liminality?
Some thoughts borrowed from HERE.
1. Slow down and wait: Whatever the reason you’re waiting, don’t try to rush out of it. It takes time to navigate transition and begin to make sense of a possible new reality. Ask God for grace and to show you what you can learn while you’re there.
2. Allow yourself to grieve: There’s no way around it. You cannot heal without grieving. Cry if you need to. Rage if you want to (safely and non-destructively). Breathe through the pain. Give yourself permission to question everything. Forget what you’re “supposed” to feel. Acknowledge that this is a loss, even if you want to feel like it is anything but. It is interesting how many of the Psalms are Lament rather than Praise.
3. Find a companion: Find someone to wait with you. As Pooh says to Piglet, “It’s so much friendlier with two.” Of course, no one can fully share the pain of your waiting, but having a trusted mentor or friend, or counsellor on your journey can help tremendously. If you are the companion, you don’t need to make it better. Don’t jump in with quick solutions or pat answers. Just listen and walk alongside.
4. Keep a journal. You don’t want to miss the lessons of this time, and journaling can help you sort out your thoughts.
5. Be kind to yourself. Eat right, sleep well, for for a walk. It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves when these times come, but falling into bad health habits will not help you weather this storm. Think of the waiting as a spiritual marathon, and keep up your training.
6. Stay in the Scriptures and in prayer. It’s easy to believe the accusations of the enemy during a waiting time. Let Scripture wash your mind with truth and pray out your pain and frustration. Dwell on Hope. Look for stories of those who have endured liminal times. Interview, maybe, your parents or relatives about what they’ve learned during trials. Check out the lives of Job, or Abraham, or Ruth.
7. Don’t be a turtle. Sometimes, when things are hard, pulling away from others and into a protective shell can be a natural instinct. But what you really need when you’re waiting is community. Reach out to your friends and be honest with your small group. The journey will be lighter with friends to help support and encourage you.
Here’s a beautiful prayer of confession and commitment based on Isaiah 35. It comes from the worship archives of St. Mary’s Church in London, England:
God of Broken People: Isaiah 35
God of Broken People and Broken Places: Far I have come, far I must go.
God of broken people and broken places
We confess to you our love of comfort,
of the known and predictable,
of the safe and secure.
We recognise that you call us into liminal space
To leave what we know
We confess to you our love of comfort,
of the known and predictable,
of the safe and secure.
We recognise that you call us into liminal space
To leave what we know
and venture with you into desert and wilderness,
into blindness and discomfort
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know
Help us to trust you, and to set out.
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know
Help us to trust you, and to set out.
On the journey of faith,
Far I have come, far I must go
Far I have come, far I must go
God of broken people and broken places
We thank you for all that Grace has been to us and to many others
We thank you for the space to listen, to grow, to create, to be challenged
We thank you for all that Grace has been to us and to many others
We thank you for the space to listen, to grow, to create, to be challenged
We recognise that you are calling us on
To leave what we know and venture with you into new things,
To leave what we know and venture with you into new things,
into engagement and participation, into creativity and risk,
into new structures and opportunities
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know
We want to follow you, but it’s hard to leave what we know
and we’re not sure where we’re going
Help us to trust you, and to set out.
Help us to trust you, and to set out.
On the journey of faith,
Far we have come, far we must go.
Far we have come, far we must go.
God of rebuilt people and rebuilt places
You have plans for deserts and wilderness
‘Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
The thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
Grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.’
You have plans for deserts and wilderness
‘Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool,
The thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
Grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.’
God of transformation we look forward to what you will do
With our lives and with Grace
With our lives and with Grace
On the journey of faith,
Far we have come, far we must go.
Far we have come, far we must go.
