Dear friends, as we near the end of the year, the concept of liminality is on my mind. I’m reposting a streamlined & revised version of a reflection from 2020 here, as it is echoing for me now.

One of my favorite words from divinity school is “liminality” – it’s a description of the betwixt-and-between, the neither-here-nor-there. The gap between life and death is liminal space. The pause before the chorus Good Vibrations is a liminal space. The end of a calendar year, or a season of life, is a liminal space.

There are just three rules to this in-between-ness, as far as I can tell.

First, we’re not allowed to stay. By definition, liminal spaces are not permanent.

Second, we can’t go backwards. Only through.

Third, in the liminality, edges are blurred, and boundaries are stretched.

Impossible things become possible.

What could be?