Liminal Spaces

Thoughts on Change: Part 2

I took this picture in January 2013 when my brother Mark and I visited our mother in Mexico in the final weeks before her death in April that year. The adjective "liminal" refers to being on the threshold of something new, but you are not quite there yet. Walter Brueggemann* describes it as 

"an unsettled feeling at the threshold of something new, 

when life is gathered into a wholly new configuration".

A bridge is a good illustration of a liminal space that connects where you've been to where you are going. Life itself is a liminal space beginning with birth and ending in death but within a lifespan, we enter thresholds of adolescence, adulthood, career, various family changes and retirement. Physical liminal spaces such as elevators, stairways, hallways, bridges, roads and the sky are known to make some people anxious. 

What if the elevator gets stuck? What if the plane crashes? What if the bridge collapses?

The bridge above represents well the uncertainties of 2012 to 2013 for our family. The endpoint was near but the journey was not smooth as we held onto hope that Mom would respond to treatment and recover.

Montmorency Falls, near Quebec City, Canada

Emotional liminal spaces are transitions with an endpoint, but that endpoint may not be clear when we embark from one side to another. It is easier sometimes to look back at an event and see it as a line in the sand. I often refer to my life before 1982 as B.C., or "Before Children". My A.D. life is "After Death",  referring to the death of my mother and then my father. Both transitions were significant and caused me to reflect on life in very different ways. 

I am generally risk-averse and when we visited Montmorency Falls I had no desire to walk across the suspension bridge that spanned the space far above the brink of the cataract. I do not enjoy heights and would likely turn back after walking a few metres across the bridge. Sometimes, changes in our lives can be equally intimidating, even terrifying as we see what could happen if we fail to navigate the transition.

Wasauksing Swing Bridge near Parry Sound ON

Some people refuse to embark across a challenging emotional threshold leaving themselves "stuck in a rut" as they resist personal change. But many of life's liminal spaces do not offer the chance to cling to old ways or make a U-turn. The current pandemic and been a long span with an indefinite endpoint and this uncertainty has created increased feelings of anxiety and depression. The swing bridge above reminds me of the suspended journey we have been on for the past two years as our lives have been disrupted by Covid-19. That swing bridge will be closing soon to allow us to finish crossing the channel. Other difficult transitions like illness and death force us to adapt in some way. The people who do it best have the support of others as well as faith and courage when facing a new future.

Rail Bridge across the Grand River, Cambridge ON

I named this blog The Other Side of Sixty-Five recognizing that I was entering a new liminal space that was not just about retirement. It is easy to fall into thinking that things were better in the past making us increasingly cynical about the present and future. There are traditions that have value but sentimentality does not age well. I have written down a few quotes from recent reading that encourage me as I continue my journey.

" I am not young enough to know everything." 

Oscar Wilde

"We are prepared to believe most things as long as they align with 

our preconceptions and predispositions." 

 Marie Henein

"We must decide if we have faith that seeks understanding or if our learning is just power-packed as knowledge... Can we honour the pain-filled voices of marginality or will we notice only the tired claims of old monopolies..."

The world waits for newness;

settled wisdom knows nothing of newness

settled wealth knows nothing of newness

settled power knows nothing of newness.

(thoughts on 1 Corinthians 1:27-29)

*Walter Brueggemann from his Lenten devotional A Way Other Than Our Own