Liminality: The Transforming Grace of In-between Places

Abstract

Richard Rohr suggests that the only way out of a person's entrapment in “normalcy, the way things are,” is to be drawn into sacred space, often called liminality, where he believes all genuine transformation occurs. Liminality, from the Latin word for threshold, is the state of being betwixt and between where the old world has been left behind but we have not yet arrived at what is to come. This article attempts to develop an understanding of liminality using metaphors of wilderness, tomb, and exile as found in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. It seeks to reconcile the paradox of the apparent hiddenness of God and the concurrent opportunity to see Him in new ways that occurs in these times. Pastoral care and counseling applications for those working with people in liminal space are briefly engaged.