Image: Epstein, Jacob, Sir, 1880-1959. Coventry Cathedral - Archangel Michael and the Devil,
from Art in the Christian Tradition,
a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN
November 15, 2015
Many people have undergone the
type of major collapse that Jesus predicted.
Their theological, social, and
political worlds have suddenly disappeared.
Others have suffered less (but
still) harrowing forms of dismantling: the sudden death of a loved one, a
Friday afternoon layoff, a stock market crash.
But unscheduled and traumatic
change is a fact of everyone's life.
And we do not skate through it.
Change may happen quickly.
But transition is a slower
process.
It is how we psychologically
adjust to the change.
It entails grieving over what has
been lost, feeling we are without our bearings, and looking forward to
something new.
The problem is when we are in the
midst of transition, we cannot envision the new. .
.
The time of transition itself has
been characterized as that moment when the trapeze artist has let go of one bar
and has not yet grabbed the next bar.
It is midair living.
The identity we had is gone and
the identity we will have has not arrived.
So, depending on the intensity and
gyration of the transition, we gain a reputation as not being ourselves.
We eat too little or too much.
We slough off work or become addicted.
We are silent when we should talk
and talk when we should be silent.
We start things we don't finish
and we try to finish things we didn't start.
We are tired of our friends asking
how we are and hurt when they don't ask how we are.
As I overheard someone say about
me in the middle of a transition, "Oh, don't mind him and his long hair.
He's numb."
In the in-between time of
transitions we have joined that legion of our fellow human beings who, in a
past moment of arrogant stability, we labeled as "not knowing their [derriere]
from their elbow."
Welcome to confusion so profound
it is anatomical.
Transitions are so
discombobulating it is difficult to see any value in the in-between state.
It is easy to look to the future
and bet on our innate resiliency. "Hang in there. You'll get
through."
However devastating the loss may
be, we will find a way to deal with it, to adapt and continue.
It may take time, but a stable
future awaits us.
Even if we do not get completely
over it, we will get beyond it.
As our unhelpful friends say,
"Life goes on, and so will you."
Spiritual teachers, an
unconventional lot, take a different tack.
They say, "Don't hurry to a
new security."
They think there is potential in
the present process of floundering.
It is not in the hope of reaching
the next bar but in the interval of being between bars.
The potential is in midair living.
Without tongue in cheek, spiritual
teachers suggest that the in-between time is an opportunity to remember that we
are always more than what is happening to us.
We are not only immersed in
transition, we transcend it.
Our soul is not only related to
the changing temporal order but to the unchanging eternal order.
When we lead a stable life on the
physical, psychological, and social levels, this spiritual truth often eludes
us.
When disruption occurs—and we
either choose or are forced to change—an invitation emerges in the middle of
the transition.
Since we are between earthly
stabilities, we may just shift awareness to our heavenly connection.
In doing this, we begin to develop
our spiritual potential.
In mystical, biblical terms the
in-between time is the third day of creation.
On that day God drew up out of the
waters dry land and separated "the waters under the sky" from the dry
land (Gen 1:9, 13).
The waters symbolize the
formlessness and turmoil of transition.
The appearance of dry land gives
humans a place to stand in the midst of the swift and dangerous currents.
What God did on the third day of
creation, God does every day.
Divine reality is always supplying
a place to stand.
However, we most need this divine
grounding when we have lost our human grounding, when we are in the midair
between the
bars.
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