See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come. – Song of Songs 2:11-12
After coming off a weekend that enabled me to be in communion with God, my brothers and sisters and creation in such a way I have not experienced in years, I determined that it was time to make some changes to this blog.
When I initially created it 16 months ago my focus was in a different place than it is now. I titled it “The Liminal Space” because that was in essence where my life was; hanging in the balance on a bunch of what ifs. Just read my first post and you’ll get a sense of where I was coming from. Truth be told my life was becoming a semblance of the title. Call me silly, but I believe that every time I looked at or posted on my blog, my subconscious was seeing “liminal space” and so I chose (without knowing it) to keep my life in that liminality. It was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. I want to be clear and say again that liminal space is not a terrible place to be; it’s just that maybe its better to not spend one’s entire life there. At some point you have got to move on to a better place, I'm now choosing to no longer live in liminal space.
I have renamed this blog “Quest for Abundant Life” because it marks the transition in my thinking. My life is now all about that quest. It will consume my being. Anything that doesn’t allow me to truly feel alive will simply be abandoned and I will not exhaust my energy wrestling with those circumstances/folks any more. Jesus came to give us abundant life and I want to become alive again… maybe even for the first time.
But know this, that this aliveness in Jesus will look very different than North American Christianity, which is full of emptiness and fear. This aliveness will look more like indigenous and even non-Christian traditions, which we are beginning to understand are more rooted in the church than North American Christianity attempts to be. The best the North American Christian Church can do is imitate the secular, which feels like home because society has a firm grasp on the church. Which is why we must now walk away from it.
Liminal space is best illustrated as being in the hallway and not yet into the room that you want be in. The quest is illustrated as a roadway, it is a journey, which is the picture at the top of this blog best suits the new name. Maybe the self-fulfilling prophecy is true. Let the quest begin!
*Note: I will keep the site address the same to eliminate confusion; symbolically it may represent the transition from liminal space to abundant life. Also, note that sometimes the columns on the right may break as you scroll down the page. If this annoys you simply refresh the page or drag your pointer across the link. I decided that it too would be a reminder that we have to daily refresh our lives with the grace and mercy of Jesus.
4 comments:
Hello Randall,
It is a very nice blog. I didn't see the other you had but I was browsing in this and it is very inspiring.
I wonder how you'll do your quest. I mean, how do you have abundant life. In my case, I went away from any churches many years ago and I feel I am missing so much. I am empty, I am not living, only surviving. I have no hope in anything (that may be because I am depressed) but when I want to look for spiritual help I cannot find it. I have gone to retreats, I have joined different groups, but nowhere do I see the light and love of God. I can say I am lost. I am dead and still moving around.
I am glad that you found some of your paths. I just would like to have an idea on how I can find mine.
Anonymous,
I don’t know your circumstances, or what led you to leave the church. I don’t even know how you miss it to this day or what you miss about it. I don’t know that part of your story… but I know you.
I know you because that emptiness and depression that resides in your soul once lived within me. The difference being that I stayed in the church, I even served as Pastor during that time. But staying in the church was not the answer to my struggle, if I had to do it all over again I might have left it altogether for some time. In fact, the church was doing little more than keeping me on life support (even then it wasn’t really life support – I liken it more to The Matrix, where humans are just sources of energy for the machines, a means of survival if you will. The church was just using us to keep them alive). I know what it means to feel lost… to essentially be sleepwalking through life. I don’t know if what I offer you is a solution. In fact I hope it is far from a solution and will lead you into a deeper life with Christ. Remember this response grows out of what I have experienced and doesn’t mean it is the path to your aliveness. All that I can do I pray that it points the way to life.
I grew up in the church, served on committees, was president of my Youth Group, licensed and continue to serve as Pastor. That wasn’t what sustained me; I had to walk away from it for a time. Please know that by “walk away”, I don’t mean that I left the church for months or years. In fact it was more like 3-4 days, which I had to immerse myself into another kind of experience, a way of living in Jesus Christ that I had not yet lived. Even though, if you’ve been reading my last 5 posts or so, I have been using the language that I came back from a retreat weekend, it really wasn’t a retreat per se. Retreats can help in that they offer a time of renewal and revival. What I am talking about is not just for a day or a week, but is sustainable for a lifetime.
I believe that we need to stop being afraid of being afraid. I know that my fears and insecurities kept me from truly being alive in Christ and our culture wants to control us by keeping us afraid.
It saddens me that there is nowhere for you to see the light and love of God. Maybe you are looking too much towards the church or certain groups. If that is the case, simply turn your attention away from those things, they want your attention, they feed off of it.
Instead, start by focusing on creation. If it is possible, spend time outdoors every day for at least an hour. Don’t take a journal or bible. Just sit in the woods listening to creation. Nothing has to happen. Just be there. I am growing to understand that if we are to survive then it means that we have to look towards indigenous cultures again to discover how they lived in community with one another and with the earth. I am finding in my discovery that they actually represent Christianity in better ways than the modern church does. One way that I plan to develop my quest for abundant life is to go on a Vision Quest in the very near future. It might be something to consider as well. May I also suggest using the Hours, in which you set aside up to eight hours a day for meditation and worship. It only has to be 15 minutes each time. I have found that practice to be helpful for me to break from the frantic pace that this culture imposes on us.
Wow! There is so much more to say. Keep checking in here to read the posts that follow, since there is too much to try and put in one post, and I say again, hopefully it points the way to life.
Randall,
Just a clarification: You said to begin by praying for eight hours a day. Wow! That's a lot. I think you meant pray eight times, right? It's confusing since the prayer cycle is called the Liturgy of the Hours, and the prayer times are called hours, but really it's not an hour each time.
Right that's what I meant. 8 times a day.
Thanks for picking up on that Travis. I would ask anyone to start by praying 8 hours a day unless they get paid to do it...
Post a Comment