On the Threshold

Dear Friends,

I gathered from several comments I heard during this past Sunday’s service that I’m not the only one that is feeling cheerful at the prospect of spring. The daffodils, poking through the ground with yellow blossoms waving bravely in the breeze, are the usual harbingers in Atlanta. The crocuses in the front yard under our ancient cherry trees have also emerged – thick, green blades first, to be followed by slender purple petals cradling golden centers.

Soon, the cherry trees themselves will be bursting with the tiniest palest pink flowers that flutter to the ground like silky snowflakes.

But, hang on! Today as I left the office, the air outside was decidedly cooler. The smooth and slightly chirpy voice of a news announcer over the car radio declared that local temperatures were falling and we were in for a cold snap tonight.

“Go back!” I wanted to warn the buds and blossoms. “It’s too soon!” While Gail and I will haul in our house plants from the back porch to protect them from freezing temperatures, the flowers and trees in our neighborhood might not be so lucky.

The turn in the weather made me think about a house nearby whose owner planed a large palm tree right in front. On cold days, the homeowner would cover his palm tree with plastic sheeting and erect what looked like heat lamps to keep it toasty.  On these threshold days – when it is not quite winter anymore but also not quite spring – I imagine that homeowner racing outside with plastic and lamps, determined to protect an exotic plant that probably didn’t belong in Atlanta in the first place.

It seems that being on the threshold can be a difficult time not just for plants, but for people, too. It can feel risky to leave something behind for something not yet fully known. Anthropologists and psychologists call this being in “liminal space,” from the Latin word limen, which means “a threshold.” When one is standing on life’s threshold, there is often ambiguity, disorientation and a loss of order and old ways of doing things. Things are in a state of flux. It’s the discomfort before the change, the way to discovery and new birth.

Author Elizabeth Lesser wrote, “How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.

During those times when we stand on the threshold, may we remain hopeful and steady. Like the early spring flowers we see around us, our time for unfolding will also come.

Warmly,

Terry