Liminality

According to anthropologist Arnold van Gennep, there are three stages or initiations into adulthood: separation, liminality, and reintegration. The concept of liminality fascinates me and here's why.

The liminal stage is "a stage of transition, a period that is neither one thing nor the other" (see Exiles by M. Frost, 109). People who enter the liminal stage separate themselves from mainstream society, from cliches and conformity, but only for a time and not as an end within itself. Here a true community forms and exists for an extended period of time on a social and spiritual threshold. People who deviate from the norm and exist in the liminal often devote themselves to causes greater than self resulting in a creative community and bond between people that defies superficial differences -- the antonymn of a cliche. The liminal community is inclusive, imaginative, and intentional. Cliques are exclusive to all who do not meet the societial, traditional, and often superficial criteria.

Bottom line: the people who breed change in society are people who have spent quality time in the liminal and found community there. Once integrated back into the mainstream, these are the people who challenge the status quo and help others move forward (or move into their own state of liminality).

I guess this really resonates with me because I lived in the liminal with a group of people while in Asia. I withdrew from mainstream existence and transitioned into another way of being. Everyone on my team experienced this at varying levels. We all had to learn how to communicate our spirituality in an environment where we couldn’t rely solely on language or words. We had to learn to listen to God in an environment where unexplainable phenomena seemed to be the norm. This all took place in a country where following Jesus was not safe (i.e. illegal) which serves as a rigid filter for those who are not serious about their commitment. I learned volumes about myself, others, and God, the likes of which I will never fully process or understand. But I’ve tasted enough of it to know that there are oceans of God yet to be had. And we will never tap into it without subjection to the liminal.

The difficulty only increases upon integration back into mainstream. God requires this as well, I think, because the integration forces others to face themselves, their traditions, and their worldview. Those who've lived in the liminal expose what is lacking in mainstream society upon integration. The best critique of the old is to live out the new....and to do so graciously among those who cannot see the old for what it is.

"If you want to build a ship, don't summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs and organize the work; teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean." (Antoine de Saint-Exupery).