It’s amazing that the most fundamental fact of life can cause us the most fear: change. We are up one day, then we’re down, then we’re somewhere in the middle, then we have no idea where we are so we look around at our neighbors and we read anything we can get our hands on – in the hope of discovering where we are. Even the definitions we use to define and shape our lives are prevalent to great winds of change: changing thoughts about what it means to be good, what it means to be just, what it means to be authentic. The changing tide can uncover questions and categories we never even thought of before.
Many people seek religion to come to terms with the inescapable nature of change, interpretation, and instability. Many also seek material excess or distraction to numb the palpable sense that at any moment all of this could change. Many will seek bliss, some drugs, some will seek to live in such a way that we feel we have some sense of control over what is happening, some kind of constancy, some kind of never changing reality.We all do this. It’s what makes us who we are, and it is what has led us to the predicament we’re in. Thank goodness we all do this, and thus we are all in this predicament together, differently confused and uncertain perhaps, but unsure nonetheless.
Certainty is a tempting drug. It is very tempting to adopt a view that says there are certain ways our life and the world will go. Oddly, there is even a temptation in assuming the worst, because even this gives us some semblance of control. It is tempting to assume the best, and believe with certainty that the best will prevail. Again, we all do this to a certain degree, and this is normal. It is what has made us who we are, and it is what has led us to the predicament we are in. You can seek certainty in many ways. You can seek certainty by believing there are certain people who do hold the answers with certainty, that even though I am deeply uncertain about just about everything, someone knows with certainty something I do not.
You can also say to yourself since I’m confused and uncertain, everyone else is equally confused and uncertain, so why listen to anybody about anything. Just follow your own way, chips fall where they may. Again, we all do this to a certain degree, and this is normal. It is what has made us who we are, and it has led us to the predicament we are in.
We can’t enough of stories about how change wreaks havoc or causes great fortune and misfortune. We love stories, both tragic and comic, where the unsuspecting person who is certain of themselves and their lot is surprised and confronted with the inescapable nature of change. We love stories of the fool who discovers oil in their backyard, and moves to Beverly Hills to live their new life. We love the blues, stories of those riding high or at least feeling confident ending up destitute and alone with hard won wisdome. We love to see characters full of pride who we see from a mile away are destined to fall, and fall hard. We love this again, because we all do this to a certain degree, and it’s normal. It has led us to be who we are, and it has led us to the predicament we are in.
The winds of change may seem to come every season, every generation, every election cycle, every full moon. Change comes during all these times and more. If you ask any one of us to tell the story of our life, and map it out, most of us will probably list certain events that highlight who we are, moments of change in the narrative that led to us being the person we are today. There were some important changes and milestones, that is guaranteed. Birth is a big one. Childhood, adolescence, for some of us adulthood, for some of us career, for some of us children, and more. We may list these turning points as the events that have made us who we are, the events that have made up our life, and charted our course.
The theme we are exploring this month is “threshold.” At first blush I thought this to be a peculiar theme since my first impression of threshold was a stagnant place, like a door frame, or a line that is drawn, of which we are compelled to either cross or retreat from. Compared to our other themes that seemed so active like “Liberation” and “Resilience,” “Threshold” seemed a bit obtuse and solid. But I thought about it a bit more, and now I feel much more inspired. We may think that there are a certain number of thresholds in a life, typically the big moments: birth, graduations, moves, marriages, divorces, etc. We may think our life is a collection of these big moments, and this is true, but I would like to now invite us into a different understanding.
Often we may see a threshold as a moment of time of real significance, where lots are at stake, like the moment we are in now. But I think the true power of these big, chaotic, earth shattering moments is not to introduce us to a new truth, but to uncover a truth that was always there, but we never noticed before. It can be tempting to think we only get a handful of truly life changing moments personally and as a collective world, that we get a certain number of moments in which we can completely and utterly transform our way of life. This is true to an extent, but only to an extent. The true power of a threshold, a point of limitation, is not to show us just what is possible in this moment: it is to show us what was possible all along.
Many of us have the palpable, visceral sense that we are living in transformative and important times. I think this is true. But the power of this realization is much deeper than this particular time and place. At this particular time, we have many people who are yearning to go back to a particular point in time when there was more of a sense of control and normalcy. We have seen this desire play out in election cycles: wanting to return to an Eden that has passed, but still might be reclaimed. A nation that was once great, but now has become so confusing, chaotic, and muddled. Many are yearning to go back to a time when we could take more for granted, like the health and well being of each other.. Again, we all do this, and it makes sense. It is what has made us who we are, and it is what has led us to the predicament we are in.
We can think that a threshold can only be encountered when there is a certain level of intensity or force, something that compels us to see more clearly the room we are in, and the donning awareness that there are other rooms where life is also happening, waiting for our response. But again the power of a threshold is not in its being bound to a particular place and time. The power of a threshold is its being seen and encountered at a particular place and time, which illuminates all places and all times. At a moment of encountering the threshold, we have the opportunity of seeing that every moment of our life was a threshold, even if we never bothered to mark the occasion. At a moment of encountering something which has the capacity to completely and utterly change us and completely and utterly change our world, we have the opportunity of seeing that every single waking moment has been presenting us with this capacity. At a moment of encountering a crisis that demands a response, we have the opportunity of seeing that our response was always being sought, whether we knew it or not, whether we marked the occasion or not.
The power of a threshold, a moment of both crises and opportunity, is to awaken us to the fact that all of life is a continuous crisis and opportunity. Of course most of us including myself, don’t desire to live in this heightened state day in and day out, and we don’t need to. But a moment like this can remind us that this reality is always present, whether we feel it or not, whether we register it as a threshold or not, whether we mark it in our mind as significant or not.
One of my colleagues did a research project on the inner lives of various people over 90 years old. It was a series of interviews about the nitty gritty of their lives, all completely anonymous. They were personal questions, ranging from sexuality, to if their partner was the love of their life, regrets, best moments, etc. One throughline of the study was that a strong majority of the interviewers said that the source of their greatest regret and their deepest satisfaction in life we’re about relationship: relationship with children, relationship with a partner, relationship with themselves, relationship with friends. There were all Americans, and a strong majority said they did not find the great satisfaction they expected in their careers, or in doing activities that they felt compelled to participate in, but it was the quality or lack thereof of their bonds with others that both gratified and kept them up at night.
My colleague asked one man: Do you wish you had accomplished more? He said: No, I wish I loved more. Of course this would make sense. It would make sense that the quality or lack thereof our relationships would be the hallmark of our lives. It would make sense that taking time to stop and take time on the threshold of I and thou, or you and me would be worth our brief and precious lifetime.
This makes sense except for one hitch. We seem to be inundated into a culture that doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t make any sense to destroy our planet for ourselves and our children to support lifestyles most of us are miserable in. It doesn’t make any sense, but we do it. It doesn’t make any sense to work 50-80 hrs a week, spending time away from those who have the most meaning to offer our lives, but we do this. It doesn’t make any sense to try like mad to become somebody great, when we have people at the threshold ready to love us as we are. It doesn’t make much sense to push ourselves toward something great, when we are surrounded by that which is truly great, our bond with others. But we forget this. All of us do to a certain degree, and it’s normal. It has led us to be who we are, and it has led us to the predicament we are in.
It seems the call right now is just as much as needing to cross the threshold, is to rest a bit on the threshold of our life in this moment. Just hang out there for a bit – look at the view. Some of what you’ll see is really hard, like loss. But even the loss is further proof of this fact – that what really matters in the end is our bond with others. It is most precious, most dear, most tender. We grieve so much because they mean so much. It’s a sign of our love, of our humanity.
We are all together on this threshold, and the collective mind is mad with possibilities both positive and negative. Will we completely reclaim the earth as our own and become better stewards? Will we further encourage dictatorship and the embarrassment of our current democracy? Will we treat our fellow citizens with dignity and respect, and find ways to economically support all of us, instead of a small minority? Will we run in fear from any of these life changing decisions and seek an Eden in the past? Or will we find Eden on the threshold, an Eden that was always present, but one we missed?
The threshold of this moment is showing us an enormous amount of human limitation. Having a healthy respect for limitation is the mark of humility, one of the most important characteristics that we are capable of. The paradox is in humility we discover that a threshold is never solid. It is ever changing. A threshold like life is changeable, and once we change, the world too is changed. And when the world changes, we too are changed. The threshold of this moment is bringing us into a much wider awareness, if we allow it. An awareness that this threshold, this time, this moment, can open us up to the thresholds that await us, all the ones we missed in our lives as they were. My only parting suggestion as we rest on this threshold is keep the door open. Keep it open. Don’t try to shut off what is happening, and don’t be in a rush to cross it. Rest on the threshold awhile. The rest of our life is waiting for us there.
