Richard Rohr recently wrote about liminality, a word that, if I’m completely honest, I did not know. However, as soon as I read it, I knew that I “knew” it! He said that “Liminal space is an inner state and sometimes an outer situation where we can begin to think and act in new ways. It is where we are betwixt and between, having left one room or stage of life but not yet entered the next. We usually enter liminal space when our former way of being is challenged or changed—perhaps when we lose a job or a loved one, during illness, at the birth of a child, or a major relocation. It is a graced time, but often does not feel “graced” in any way. In such space, we are not certain or in control. This global pandemic we now face is an example of an immense, collective liminal space.” I like this explanation. This is our, and everyone’s, current reality. Present experience gives us time to rethink the way things are done. Living in this liminal space has thrown our initial plans out the window. Now, we’re looking at new ways of connecting that we wouldn’t have considered before quarantine happened. In that regard, we realize that we no longer have two plans, one for our last couple of months in Québec and another to launch upon our return to BC, but one. As Zoom, Facetime, Google Hangout, and Messenger video chats have become de rigueur, we are seeing people from across town and across the country every day. Why do we need to stop that? We don’t! So we started a new group online this week! For now, it just has people from Montréal, but the plan, hope, and prayer is that this group will start to incorporate people from the Okanagan, living life and grappling with matters of faith together—authentic community, while creating more BC/Québec connections! Otherwise, we continue in our daily reality of life at home—reading, online meetings, Netflix, and walks in the neighbourhood. So glad we get along well! May includes our anniversary, Mother’s Day, and both Val’s and Jaedyn’s birthdays. When we celebrated my birthday in March, I didn’t know we’d still be isolating for theirs! The pictures below are from our walks (still more layered up than out west), occasional forays onto transit, and from our anniversary (celebrating with take-out poutine that ended up lasting for 3 meals each). Selecting them has made me realize, as we start to think about our return to BC, that we will miss being here like we miss home now. Perhaps we have sentenced ourselves to lives of discontent, loving where we are but missing our other reality?
0 Comments
|
AuthorTom & Val, off on a mid-life adventure (but not crisis) in la belle province! Archives
May 2020
Categories |