January 2024 – revmummy

I’ve always loved the idea of liminal times and spaces, thin places between heaven and earth, the spirit world and the physical one – thresholds. The idea is mysterious and intriguing – an invitation into unknown and mystery.

Reality is – thresholds are scary. It means change and change is scary. It means leaving the safety and security of the familiar, no matter how uncomfortable or even awful that familiar is, and stepping – with confidence, with fear, with reluctance, with trepidation – into the unknown.

My family and I moved across the country to follow a dream, a promise in a job that I was invited into. Unfortunately that part of my job was more nightmare than dream, and after 5 years of struggle and just plain awfulness, I’m free of it. I no longer work for the camp I had envisioned my children growing up in. And I’ve lost a 1/4 of my salary to boot. It’s forced me into a threshold time.

I am very, very blessed that we have enough resources that we aren’t in danger of losing our home or not being able to feed our children while we figure out what now, how do we replace that 1/4 salary. I’m at the beginning of a 3 month sabbatical where I have so much time and space to reflect and examine and investigate new possibilities, and that is such a good thing. It’s also a time where I’m re-examining where my calling is. I love the church, I love being a minister, I love the Bible and God and Jesus and ritual and community. But most of my career has been working with children and youth and young adults. Most of my career I’ve been the young leader in the room. And while I still love the work with younger people, I’m old enough now to be the parent of the young leaders in the room! I’m closer to retirement than the beginning of my career now. And I think what was familiar is no longer what I’m called to do.

So in this gift of time and space of sabbatical, in this threshold time of figuring out “what next” I can look at this threshold and all its complicated emotions with less fear and more curiosity. God always seems to show up in thresholds. In dreams, that threshold between waking and sleeping. At doorways, waiting to be invited in as a stranger which is often an angel in disguise. At the shoreline, between water and land, calling tired fishers to come for breakfast on the beach or asking to be baptized. At the edge of the wilderness times and places. I’m drawn to these stories right now – Jacob and the angel, Jesus at the lakeshore.

And because God sends the messages we need if we have eyes to see and hearts open to receive, someone posted this to a Facebook page this week – an amazing quote by John O’Donohue: words I need to take to heart, rest in, pray with, embrace into my being right now.

At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross. — From To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue

I hope my heart is passionately engaged and woken up to be ready for the time to cross. And see all the gifts that enable me to do that.