March 20th

Embracing Liminal Space
with David Wetton 
8 am PT
11 am ET
5 PM CET
or check your timezone 

Anthropologists define liminality as the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.

During a rite's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.

David Wetton, who'll facilitate March 20th Online Community Exploration, believes we're all living in liminal space. 

"Liminality is where we are betwixt and between, and usually therefore “not in control,” he says.

Liminal space is emptiness and nowhere. It is uncertainty and chaos. it is a place of discomfort and unrest. It is a place of challenge.

Liminality is a place where previously trusted maps no longer seem to work

"From a Christian faith perspective, liminality is the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.....without knowing the good news.

"From a Buddhist perspective, liminality is when the Buddha sat under the Bodhi Tree, before he achieved his awakened breakthrough,

And I believe it's the space we're in now, with the Covid pandemic," Wetton said.

"I also believe it's a space we are called to embrace within ourselves, in order to serve those we feel called to serve, more deeply, more authentically."

During this exploration we'll do just that, by first examining what it means for each of us to be in liminal space, and exploring how best to navigate it, both within ourselves and in the collective chaos that characterizes our world.