Dear Disciples of Christ at Holy Spirit, St. Helen’s, and St. Mary’s,

We, you and I and our Church community, are at a liminal moment.
In seminary, we attended a seminar on Marriage Prep programs. We were there to learn the ins and outs of getting a couple ready not just for the day of their Catholic Wedding but the Catholic Marriage that would follow. Our presenter, who turned out to be a quite wonderful speaker, started by giving us a bit of her curriculum vitae. She was telling us schools she attended, papers written, where she had worked (yawn) and such details. I was spacing out a bit when she grabbed my attention with the statement that she had five marriages. FIVE MARRIAGES and this person was supposed to be teaching us about Marriage for LIFE? Seeing she had our attention, the speaker followed this up by saying, “To the same man, sillies. What were you thinking?”

She explained that her meaning was that she and her lifelong spouse had lived at least five stages of marriage. There was the short but blissful honeymoon marriage, the things are getting real marriage of learning the day-to-day ins and outs of married life, the kids are here marriage, the kids are teenagers’ marriage, and the becoming empty nesters marriage. Each marriage had its own joys and trials, life lessons and losses. Her point, however, was that the transitional moments were the most important. Those times of transition from one way of being married to another were a time of choices, a time fraught with the possibility of pulling apart but also God’s goal of their coming closer together into a more genuine union.

We are at a liminal moment. This is a transitional period often filled with ambiguity and the disorientation of being, “in-between.” The old is ending, the new is dawning but is still taking form. The name comes from the Latin for Threshold. We are standing in a doorway. Many have one foot on either side of the threshold. In my Celtic roots, this is sometimes spoken of as a thin place. A thin place is one where multiple realities and possibilities press against each other in ways they normally don’t.

These thin places can be disorienting and even frightening. But more importantly they are places of opportunities and decision. New or different opportunities for how the future can take shape are seen but in a foggy or unclear manner. Small decisions and choices made have the potential to make a much deeper impact than normal. Throughout the centuries and over cultures these have been seen as sacred moments.
In storytelling, the hero/heroine often meets a guide or wise person in this time of transition. Who is our guide? The Heart of Jesus. As Jeremiah proclaims in our first reading, “The Lord is with me. A mighty Champion.”

Jesus I Trust in YOU, Fr. Ian