Crossing the Threshold: Creating Intentional Transition Shawnee Mission UU Church September 18, 2011 Lane Campbell, Intern Minister At the beginning of each school year, students gather at Starr King School for the Ministry at the threshold of our school building in Berkeley, California. The concrete stairs lead up to the glass doorway of a modest-sized building. Around the entryway are prayer flags containing writings and pictured faces of alumni and current students. In front of the school is a garden containing trees and shrubs and flowers- this time of year casts the sun in a green shade as it is filtered through the tree leaves. As each person approaches the sidewalk outside, we begin to form a solid group, and we sing, Come, come whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, over of leaving, ours is no caravan of despair. Come, yet again, come. More and more people join the group as the song is sung in a round, in response to one another. It is our welcoming song, a song that lets people know there is a place for them here, that they are not alone in crossing this threshold. My first year, I had planned my arrival well. The day before orientation to Starr King began, I made my way to the school, riding the train walking up to the building. I timed my travel and planned accordingly. However, the next morning, the train was running late. Now, the school I go to is on the top of a very steep hill, about a 50 degree incline. Some say it brings us closer to God. I ran up that hill as fast as I could. Panting and wheezing, I arrived to my first day of orientation late and the community was still singing. My classmate met me at the edge of the group, encouraged me to breathe and said, You are here now. You have arrived. It was both reassuring and daunting at the same time. This process of crossing the threshold can t be contained on one moment. It wasn t just about when my feet carried me into this school building which was to become a spiritual home for me over the next three years. There was a much longer process that got me there and a good length of time before I really felt like I had arrived, like I had settled in. 1
Often when I think of the phrase crossing the threshold, it invites images of wedded couples- a bride and a groom, a bride and a bride, a groom and a groom- one draped over the others outstretched arms being carried into a pristine, new home. This may be one right of passage that some of us here have experienced. However I think that crossing the threshold speaks to the major transitions we experience in our lives- our rights of passage, the changes that transform who we are. I want to speak to this entering piece for a moment, the times when we willingly walk through the doorways both physical and metaphorical. This morning, as you arrived for worship, you walked through two doorways- the entrance to the church and the entrance to Fellowship Hall. Did the two feel different? Did they feel similar? Over the coming weeks, I would invite you to pay attention to how it feels to cross the threshold of this building. How do you ready yourself for Sunday? It could be that at you take a leisurely morning, with a big meal or time to drink your coffee and read the paper. Perhaps you jump out of the bed into your shower into your closet into the car and you are on your way. I know I have experienced times of both. In these profound changes, we engage not only a process of entering, but a process of leaving. When we enter a new part of our life, a larger transition, we are sometimes leaving behind a past experience or identity. With change comes a deep feeling of grief- we are no longer the same person we once were. Not only does grief come with the death of a loved one or relative, but it is also experienced with any sort of loss- a big move, a new job, a rainstorm that floods our basement and ruins our possessions, or any myriad of life changes. In each of these experiences, one has to readjust- life feels different. We acknowledge that we live with a new identity now, even though who we once were still deeply influences how we live and interact in this world. I want to tell you a story about my childhood. I remember our family dog, Marley, passing away. He had been having heart complications, which was expected for his breed. When he died, there was no 2
funeral, no ritual to mark his passing. I was extremely sad. Life felt different without his presence in our home. My mother suggested we make a book together. I would draw the story of his death, dictating it to my mother who recorded the story, since I was too young to write. Together, we made a cover for the book out of cardboard and thick wallpaper. We glued the wallpaper to the outside and stitched the pages into the spine by hand. As thread ran through paper, his passing was somehow marked officially. This book became a vessel to hold my grief, to mark this difficult life transition. It is hard to say good-bye, but it is a part of any deep life change. There are times to say good-bye to people, places, ways of living- many of them difficult. So perhaps, we avoid saying good-byes altogether or acknowledging the way things are going to change. Or perhaps we embrace the leaving and make sure to say goodbye to all we know we will miss. It takes courage to say good-bye, it takes courage to name a transition publicly. Speaking to my own recent transition, preparing to move out here for this internship was like no other experience. I was leaving my northern California home to come to a place where I knew no one, but where I felt called. I said my good-byes to people, establishing the different ways we were going to stay in touch. I still sit with some of the grief over leaving a place and the people who made me feel at home. The possibilities of this internship serving this congregation over the course of this upcoming year were deeply thrilling and I was so excited when I arrived in the Kansas City Airport. I still carry this sense of excitement and enthusiasm with me in the weeks I have been serving this congregation. When I woke up my first morning here, it almost felt surreal. I just couldn t believe I had made it here. Though I had been anticipating this move for months, it still felt like it was an idea, rather than a reality. There was still so much I could not anticipate or prepare for, so I try to stay present to this transition and trust that it is where I need to be. That morning, I woke up and reached down into my backpack to pull out the books I packed for this journey, before my entire library was to arrive via US Postal Service. That moment, I opened a daily 3
prayer book that was given to me by the minister at my home congregation when I bridged from high school to college. In a service honoring my youth group s transition from high school students to graduated adults, she handed each of us a book called Awakening the Soul by John C. Morgan. It is loosely based on a Unitarian daily prayer book called Day Unto Day. I opened the worn pages and turned to the actual date. The passage read: Transitions from one condition, stage, form, activity, or place to another are everyday happenings woven inextricably into each person s life. The heart of transition is the actual moment in which this passage takes place. What makes transitions blessed is our ability to see them as sacred occurrences discerning them with reverence as we acknowledge their happening. Sometimes fear drives us to try to avoid transitions. We see them as risks rather than opportunities. When we are successful in running away, we cut ourselves off from life s surprises, even the joyful ones, and thereby deprive ourselves of the new insights or paths that they open up to us. I was completely taken aback. Here in this book I had been using off and on throughout my time in seminary was a message for me at this exact moment in my life. From that day forward, I have sat with this book faithfully each morning, reading the passage to consider, sitting with the questions that come up, and praying aloud the prayers Morgan has written for each day. I sit with this book not because it is especially well-written, but because it comes from a place that has supported me and loved me. It comes from a place that feels like home, no matter how far I travel. In these times of transition, of crossing the threshold, we must hold onto what grounds us. It may come in the form of people or pets or a book or a beloved object. What is important is that we remember who we are and that we are cared for and held by God in the many ways God is know in this room, in the many ways the divine is unknowable. Or perhaps what holds you is a community of people, loved ones you have developed bonds with. If we are to make a transition without getting lost, we must hold onto that which grounds us in times of chaos because change is not easily contained. And there will still be times when we are completely prepared for the changes in our lives, the transitions we are choosing to enter into, and something will go differently from what one had planned. Within change, there is always a possibility that something will go wrong, a piece of the planning will be 4
dropped, something else will get thrown in the mix at the last minute. I say all this not to raise panic, but to tell you that there are times when we have to trust that love, the divine, the things which ground us, will carry us through. At times, we must let go of the preparation and planning to allow for the spirit to move us, to give us pause for reflection, to draw our attention to that which will sustain us through the many thresholds we will cross over the course of a single lifetime. May each of us be in touch with that which sustains us, which nourishes our souls in the transitions ahead of us. We will cross over many thresholds during our time here on this earth. May this community hold the wanderer, the worshipper, the lover of leaving and encourage us to keep spiritual practice and breathing at the forefront of any transition. Change is hard. Let us continue to prepare to cross the threshold and to trust that we will come out on the other side transformed by our experience. BENEDICTION Love will guide us through the many thresholds we will cross. May you leave this place knowing you are held by what you love. Go now in peace. Blessed be. Amen. 5