Liminal space is the space in-between who we are and who we will be.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
Liminal space is the space in-between who we are and who we will be. As we approach the third third of life, we face liminal space. We are changing and life is changing in ways we cannot control. In this precarious place, God is inviting us to new life.
Spiritually, liminal space is considered a sacred place where we can look for the grace of transformation. Liminal space occurs throughout our lives, but it becomes even more obvious to us as we face the new experience of getting older. Into the liminality of our senior years, God invites us to new life.
As much as I want to believe this, some days I find myself praying, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24, NRSV). On the days of my unbelief, it helps to remember that the Bible is full of stories of people who have gone through liminal space. The Israelites were in liminal space when Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt to move toward the unknown Promised Land. They didn’t like the experience of the unknown any more than I do. They said to Moses, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!” (Exodus 16:3, NIV). My version of that on my worst days is, “If only I had died young!”
The Old Testament reports that generations after the Israelites fled from Egypt, a large number of Judeans were taken into Babylon after a military defeat. Living in captivity, away from their homes, must have been a liminal space for them. But God said, “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce” (Jeremiah 29:5). This reminds me of my friends who don’t lament the liminality of retirement. They settle in and begin again. But others in retirement are like the exiles who wept over all that they had lost (Psalm 137:1). We all experience change and loss in different ways.
Whether we lament or rejoice, we can be assured that the Holy Spirit is with us. In the first chapter of the Bible, we learn that “The earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). As we face the ever-changing landscape of aging, the future is unformed and dark. But in the liminal space of creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Spirit continues to hover over all that God is creating in us and in the world.
Into that first darkness, God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3). As we face the diminishments of age, which seem dark indeed, the Spirit of God whispers: “I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland” (Isaiah 43:19, NIV). God invites us to notice the hovering of the Spirit in our lives and to look for the light.
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