limin

my friend / student ryan writes about liminality and limin (one of my favorite topics) and asks in today's blog, whether:


Does everyone always feel they are at an in-between stage?

Neither here nor there? I guess people my age do at least.

Isn’t life just one big state of limin anyways?

I have this idea that people RESIST the feeling of betweenness because its unsettling. That most of people's fealty to doctrine, institutions, bueracracy, parties, stereotypes & locales is rooted in a growing or lurking sense of fear that...

THINGS ARE CHANGING.

and they may or may not be able to keep up or MATTER in the world-that's-coming.

I think there's a certain truth in being able to embrace the danger and chaos of betweeness that's rare to find in people. Particularly in people who have the opportunity to opt out of that danger -- that betweeness -- that neither/nor -- both/and....

how dare i go up for tenure in the face of these comments?

how dare i own a mortgage?

and why buy life insurance at all?

good questions. i keep asking them too. i'll tell you this, it's a heck of alot easier to be a prophet when your retirement account is steadily growing than it was to be naked and wandering through the streets of jerusalem with an oxen yoke on your back.

unsettled in my peace ~