Is There Really Something Beautiful in the Liminal Space?
Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash
“When are we going to move into our new house, Mommy?” my 7-year-old son asked me.
“I don’t know, honey. We are still waiting to know when the borders will open so that we can move,” I answered. “Right now, we just have to be patient.”
My son and I have had this same conversation, I don’t know how many times, during the past two months. Same question, same answer.
Be patient. Wait.
Here we are—trying to move from one house to another, trying to move from one chapter of our lives to another.
We are in this unique place, this unique space—“in between.”
We currently have two houses, pay two rents. We have already packed up our belongings in our “old house.” The boxes are piled high in the garage ready to be moved. Yet, we are still living in the “old house.” Our “new house” awaits us, but we can’t move in yet due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
It feels like we are stuck in a doorway, and we can’t go anywhere—can’t go backward, can’t go forward.
We don’t feel fully present in either place. Just stuck, once again, in this “land between.”
Yes, we are back on life’s never-ending bridge of transition.
Some refer to this place as a “liminal space.”
What is a ‘Liminal Space?’
Liminal comes from the Latin word, “limen,” which means “threshold—any point or place of entering or beginning.”
Liminal spaces can be physical like airport lobbies, stairwells, elevators, parking lots, or hotel hallways. They can also represent the time and place between major events, stages, or seasons of our lives—college graduation, marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, a move overseas, or a job change.
In any case, all of these liminal spaces represent the time and place “between the ‘what was’ and the ‘next.’ It is a place of transition, a season of waiting, and not knowing,” says Liminal Space.
Sound familiar?
Many of us find ourselves in a similar liminal space right now. The global pandemic of COVID-19 has thrown us all into places of transition, seasons of waiting and not knowing.
Standing on the Threshold
We stand in a historical moment where everything feels suspended—halted. We stand around the world with bated breath, anticipating what lies beyond the threshold. We stand on the verge of something that we can’t yet see or reach.
Many of us were in the middle of something when life came to a sudden standstill. We were in the middle of work projects, of college semesters, of geographical moves, of language study programs, of cultivating new relationships, of community developments, in the middle of something.
Then, we slammed hard into the wall of COVID-19. We suddenly found ourselves smack in the middle of something else—liminal space.
We are now trapped in this place between doors, between chapters.
Most of us fight it. A few of us welcome it. Most of us resist it. A few of us invite it. Most of us hate it. A few of us relish it.
The liminal space is uncomfortable. We feel out of control. We feel stuck, unable to move backward, unable to move forward.
The situation is similar to the crisis moments in our lives that can represent both “danger” and “opportunity.” It’s all in our perspective and how we view both the disruption of the “crisis” and the “liminal space.”
Opportunities, Really?
The liminal space we all find ourselves in today represents a place that is uncomfortable, even painful. Yet, if we stop and notice, we may begin to see some new opportunities . . . opportunities for growth and change.
According to Liminal Space, it’s “where all transformation takes place, if we learn to wait and let it form us.”
Richard Rohr, author of “Falling Upward: Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life,” describes the liminal space as the place “Where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed.”
Like the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly during the Chrysalis, or pupa, stage, our own transitional periods can be times of both mystery and revelation, the falling apart of the old before the unveiling of the new.
Rohr says that these thresholds of waiting and not knowing what comes next are found everywhere in our lives, and are inevitable. He emphasizes the importance of encountering these liminal spaces from time to time in our lives in order to bring about change and to not idealize normalcy in our lives.
He encourages us to get to the liminal spaces in our lives often “and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. The threshold is God’s waiting room. Here we are taught openness and patience.”
Dr. Sarah Thomas, in her TED Talk, “Liminal Spaces,” says, “The benefit of sudden transport into unfamiliar places affords us the urgent opportunity to re-orient, to learn, to rise, and even transform.”
Just like the butterfly.
Photo by Bankim Desai on Unsplash
The Beauty of the Chrysalis
Most of us—everywhere in the world—didn’t enter our current liminal space by choice, but by force. We are fully aware of the suspension of time and space in our lives right now. We can’t move, we can’t work, we can’t travel, we can’t spend time with people. We can’t do much of anything.
If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us don’t know what to do in this “land between.” We don’t know how to navigate this place of transition.
“We often miss the real potential of ‘in-between’ places—we either stand paralyzed or we flee the ‘terrible cloud of unknown.’”
But if we look closely—at ourselves—we can begin to see the beauty that is forming inside the chrysalis. We can begin to notice the beauty of the liminal space.
Perhaps during this time, we are growing in our character, developing patience in the waiting. Perhaps in this space, we are taking needed time to search into the deep places of our soul—finding our deepest dreams, desires, needs. Perhaps we are learning life lessons during this season that we can take into the next chapters of our life—lessons about ourselves, lessons about our relationships, etc. Perhaps we are deepening our spiritual life in this space where everything feels out of control, and we grab ahold of something new, something bigger.
Let’s all look around this unique space in which we find ourselves. Let’s believe, and help each other see, that there really is something beautiful in the liminal space.
For further learning, here’s Dr. Sarah Thomas’ TED talk on the liminal space:
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Other See Beyond articles on transition and how to navigate the liminal spaces of our lives:
Other resources: