Minilogue March 2010

In-Between-dom!

By the Rev. Bruce Johnson

Many years ago, at a meeting of Unitarian Universalist ministers, one of my colleagues, who was known to everyone as an especially ardent feminist, was passionately encouraging the rest of us to get involved in a social action project that she thought was particularly important. We seemed to be a natural constituency for this particular cause. She appealed to our common values and vision. “After all,” she blurted out, energetically waving her arms, “we’re all working for the Kingdom!” The rest of us sat back, startled at this use of patently patriarchal language by someone who was such a principled feminist. In the sudden silence, she seemed to realize how odd that language sounded, coming from her, so she quickly corrected herself: “I mean the Queendom!” That didn’t seem quite right, either, however, so she tried again, one more time: “Oh, you know...the In-Between-dom!” Of course, everyone laughed at this spontaneous creative outburst of new language, which succeeded in disclosing an elusive reality that we all recognized in our midst, even as we struggled to name it.

Ever since that time, the phrase, “in-between-dom,” has been a favorite of mine.

It points toward a transitional space that is potent with possibility. When we are between one phase and another in our lives – “neither here nor there,” as it is said – we may feel disoriented and uncertain, anxious to scramble back toward familiar ground or to leap ahead into a new and secure status, without having to navigate through the rapids of change. But if we allow ourselves to enter fully into the flowing moment of transition, we may feel a certain freedom as we let go of old patterns, and grasp new possibilities.

Every story of transition includes a beginning, a middle, and an end, though not necessarily in that order. In fact, stories of transition often begin with an ending of some decisive nature. The threshold into transformative change is marked by a “funeral” of some sort. Failing to attend to the reality of loss and to grieve it satisfactorily means that one must carry unwanted baggage through the “white water” of transition. “What we call a beginning is often the end,” wrote the poet, T.S. Eliot, “and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”

Anthropologists who study rituals of initiation speak of the liminal space (from the Latin word for “threshold”) that is set apart from ordinary life when initiates enter
into the ceremonial process. An adolescent undergoing the ritual passage into adulthood must make a clean break with childhood in order to immerse himself or herself in the primordial, chaotic state which is the precondition of every new beginning. The elders of the community protect and maintain a “holding environment” within which creative transformation can occur.

The “in-between-dom” can be an enchanted zone, a place of initiation. We emerge from transition a different person than when we entered. All life changes contain challenges, but some transitions are more difficult than others. Losing a job, experiencing a divorce, leaving home – these experiences may challenge our core sense of identity. Framing such transitions as initiatory experiences, as journeys into and through the realm of “inbetween-dom” may help to give meaning and hope that, even out of seeming chaos, new creation can emerge.