Reflections for May 3, 2020
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church

Betwixt and Between

I reached an interesting milestone the other day, on May 1. I suddenly realized that I have not filled the gas tank of my car since the second week of March. It’s been almost two months since I stopped for gas.

I mention this because even though we know deep in our bones that we are living through perhaps the strangest period of our lives, sometimes it’s helpful to think of something very ordinary to bring the strangeness into sharp focus. Almost two months without buying gas, when typically I would fill up at least every two weeks.

Once upon a time, mere weeks ago, we could take so many things for granted. We could manage our days often without thinking very deeply about them, or analyzing our choices, trying to decide what is safe, what level of risk might be worth it. Every time I run out of a food item I stop and ask myself if I’m willing to make a trip out for it. Generally the answer is ‘no’, but I will note for the record that I have not yet run out of coffee.

I find that I don’t spend much time wishing for my life to return completely to the way it was, and as the days pass I don’t think as much about that life that changed so abruptly so recently. But at the same time, I can’t clearly see the future. What will our lives be like as we transition into a world in which a dangerous virus will continue to be a factor in all we do?

We are no longer where we were. And we are not yet where we will be going. We are standing on a threshold, waiting in what is often called ‘liminal space’. Liminal space, and time, is that time in between, standing on a threshold, neither inside nor outside, neither living the familiar lives we knew, nor having any vision or plan yet for the new life that awaits us.

The last few days, I have had a children’s story running through my head. Perhaps you know it; it goes like this:

“We’re going on a bear hunt!
We’re gonna catch a big one.
What a beautiful day
I’m not scared.”

As the children continue on their bear hunt, they encounter scary things, such as a field of tall grass, mud, a river, and a cave. And each time, they recite to each other,

“Can’t go over it
Can’t go under it,
Gotta go through it!”

Winston Churchill had a slightly different version of this. During World War II he famously advised, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

And so, here we are. There is no going around this crisis, no going under it, or over it, or turning back. We have to go through it. And right now, we are neither at our beginning point nor at the end of this crisis, this journey. We have to keep going through it.

Our theme for this month is Thresholds. And this theme was chosen over a year ago, but whoever would have imagined how appropriate this is for this time, right now, as we wait, neither here nor there, for the world to change.

At the beginning, on this journey, we might have said that we were waiting to return to normal. As the days pass and more and more ordinary things begin to feel out of reach, or even strange when we think back on them, we begin to see that we will not be returning to normal. Should we want to? So much as been exposed to us: the inability of our economy to withstand such a dramatic crisis, the huge gap between those who have the means to live in isolation and those who have been forced to continue to risk their health in order to put food on the table, the flaws of our health care system, the lack of consensus about what the crisis is and how best to respond. Do we want to return to everything exactly the way it was?

The great paradox of this liminal time, and one of the great challenges, is that despite the fear, the dislocation, the losses, this is also the beginning of a time of great possibility. We stand on the threshold, waiting.

“Wait upon the narrow moment, the first awareness of being in between!
Live days and seasons on the thin edge of dawn, in praise that every single thing begins now!”
(George Kimmich Beach)

 

The Movement Into Mystery

“To look back is to lose the soul I was leading upwards towards the light. To look forward? Ah, what balance is needed at the edges of such an abyss.” (R.S. Thomas, “Threshold”)

Here we stand on that ‘thin edge of dawn.’ We stand unwillingly, unhappily, with fear. And we are offered a choice in this moment, here on the edge. Do we look back, and lose the progress we have made, the growth and maturity and wisdom of a lifetime? Or do we risk looking ahead into the unknown?

Watching the news these days it’s clear that many people want to turn back. They are angry at the social distancing, the shutdowns. They don’t want to be told to wear masks. They claim to be choosing freedom over government intervention, but behind all that is a desire to turn the clock back. ‘The virus is a hoax.’ ‘It’s no worse than the flu.’ We’ve all heard the arguments, which amount to a cry for returning to the comfortable, the familiar, when people felt somewhat in control.

Change is hard. At times we all want to go backward, to pretend that we will be able to reclaim a life we are used to. But making that choice will ensure that we will never grow. We will reject all the possibilities for transformation that open to us when we embrace change.

Perhaps you have heard of a man named William Bridges. He is known as a ‘change consultant’, and has written extensively about the nature of transition in our work and personal lives. He tells us that there is a difference between change and transition. “Change,” he wrote, “is situational. Transition, on the other hand, is psychological. It is not those events, but rather the inner reorientation or self-redefinition that you have to go through in order to incorporate any of those changes into your life. Without a transition, a change is just a rearrangement of the furniture. Unless transition happens, the change won’t work, because it doesn’t ‘take’.” William Bridges, Managing Transitions, 1991.)

In other words, it is how we respond to change that will allow us to grow, and to transform; to take a situation such as the Covid-19 pandemic and use it to transform ourselves and perhaps society around us.

We see change in one-way aisles at the grocery store, in take-out only at restaurants, in wearing a mask in public. Those simple changes to our daily lives will not necessarily transform anything, especially if we defy them, deny their necessity. But where might transformation come in our lives? Have you begun to notice differences in your thinking? Are there parts of your old life that you might be ready to let go of?

I find myself thinking of this, and beginning to make a list. I have told myself for years that I tread lightly on the earth, that I am careful to do my part to care for the environment. But now I see that I could do so much more, and I see so many changes that I hope will be permanent; ways to make my own life and the life of the earth more sustainable. Less driving, for example.

My greatest hope in this liminal time, this transitional time, is that our nation will find itself on a path, not of change, but of transformation. Could we become a country that offers health care to all who need it? Could we do more to protect the most vulnerable among us, and to truly understand health as a right and a necessity, not a privilege?

We are poised on a threshold, with choices to make. Do we step forward into the unknown, into mystery, toward growth and transformation, or do we hesitate, and let fear turn us around and stop us?

“To look back is to lose the soul I was leading upwards towards the light. To look forward? Ah, what balance is needed at the edges of such an abyss.”

A liminal time, this liminal space we are in, is frightening in many ways. We cannot clearly see the future, and we may long for the familiar past. But at the same time, we can have faith that this is not the end of the story. And so, when we recognize that we are pausing on a threshold, suspended for a time, we can choose to respond with hope. The future, although unknown, can be better than the present. If we look closely, we might be able to discern some dim outlines of a better world. A threshold does not have to be a scary place, if we allow ourselves to be hopeful.

During this time when change is demanded of us almost daily, may we recognize the potential of transformation, and the bright possibility of hope, as we stand together on the threshold.