Holy Saturday exists in liminal space, the in-between space. Good Friday is past and Easter is not yet come. It is a time of waiting; a time of great uncertainty. Yet it is a sacred space because we, out of necessity, have to let go of what was and trust in the promise of goodness in what is to come.
It is not unlike the place most of us currently occupy—the in-between space of life before COVID-19 and life after. We wait in uncertainty having left our life “before” without having arrived at our life “after.”
Like most of you I have my ideas about what is happening and why, who is responsible for the state we all find ourselves in and the motivations behind it. In time there will be accountability. But none of that really matters now. Our reality now is that the past is done, the future not yet here. So we wait.
But our waiting need not be a time of nothingness or fear. The waiting is like a fallow field or like a pregnancy. In the stillness and darkness of the fallow field, microbes are restoring the soil, preparing it to nourish the next crop planted. And in the stillness and darkness of the womb, new life takes shape growing into what will be for both parent and child.
In this liminal space, we’re invited to embrace the stillness and the darkness of unknowing to contemplate and pray. In our confusion and angst from being out of work or away from family and friends, or grieving all that we’re losing (freedom, jobs, financial stability, those we love, health, trust in institutions), the microbes of spirituality are nurturing the growth of our new self.
In this pregnant pause, we contemplate all the good we’ve left behind that we definitely want to nurture and grow and bring into the future. We acknowledge that which we need to let go, behaviors, ideas, that no longer serve who we’re becoming, that don’t quite fit within our coming responsibilities (our response-ability).
In our current liminal space we choose with consciousness and confidence the life we will live into because we recognize ourselves as sacred beings infused with all the love of the Creator who breathed life into us and lives embodied life through us. This Creator also gave us the freedom to choose life (through love) or death (through resentment, anger, or giving up).
Conscious Choice Empowers Us
Each morning we awake, we have a choice. Will we let the circumstances of our life determine the level of joy and gratitude we feel that day or will joy and gratitude flow simply from the sacred gift of another day of being alive?
Some days have more challenges than others yet how we perceive those challenges determines whether they are unmanageable burdens or opportunities and invitations to love.
In the challenges of our present uncertainty, stop for a moment to ask yourself what you’d do if fear didn’t matter: if you only chose from a place of love.
And what if blame didn’t matter and you concentrate simply on what you can do, not only for yourself but also in our Oneness of being our brother’s and sister’s keeper?
Our destiny is within our power to determine. It is a spiritual life or death choice. So, remember: thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits determine character, character determines destiny.
Let us pray…