Karen Hering is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, chaplain, and author of Writing to Wake the Soul: Opening Sacred Conversations Within and a forthcoming book, Living in the Between: a thresholder’s guide to personal and global change to be published in 2022. As a literary minister based in St. Paul, Minnesota, Karen leads guided writing sessions, retreats, and communications workshops in congregational, community, and workplace settings and is currently serving as an interim pastoral care minister at Unity Church-Unitarian. She facilitated the Communities of Calling Initiative (CCI) annual meeting in August 2021 and led the Collegeville Institute writing workshop Awakening Theological Imagination in the Congregation in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Collegeville Institute staff member Jessie Bazan, spoke with Hering about the callings of congregations during this liminal pandemic time.
Define “threshold” as a theological concept. Why is this a valuable framework for congregations in this pandemic time?
A threshold, in a literal sense, is the entrance to a building or space. It can be a portal or the space surrounding it or the sill at the bottom of a doorway, intended to keep the outside mud or cold air from moving inside. As a theological concept, the threshold is a time or place in between, what we often call liminal space. It’s the point of sacred encounter between inside and outside, you and me, this and that, the past and what is yet to come.
Every present moment is in fact a threshold, a hinge in time connecting what is no longer with what is not yet. As such, the threshold is really the only place where transformation can happen, which is what makes it so important theologically. It is our invitation to participate in creation and God’s call to bring transformative justice and beloved community into being in this world.
Threshold times and places appear throughout scripture, often as wilderness times when the familiar is lost and the future is unknown and the power of transformation moves in the human heart and in history. Today, the pandemic has taken all of us into a threshold time—in which the familiarity of old ways has been taken from us, and the future is more uncertain than ever, and we are invited to pause and ask: How might we participate in these unknowns and choose a future aligned with God’s call toward a more just and loving design?
The threshold is really the only place where transformation can happen.
The diaspora we have all experienced by leaving our sanctuaries and embodied worship practices behind, now gives us fresh eyes and choices as we slowly return to our buildings and our in-person gatherings. We have been changed, individually and collectively, by our pandemic experiences and are now asked to let go of the way things were long enough to imagine and create beautiful new ways not known before. There is great loss in this, for sure. And grief aplenty. We need to acknowledge that and make room for it. But there is hope for transformation too, and the resurrective possibilities that come from loss and grief.
In your presentation to the CCI teams, you spoke of the importance of engaging our whole bodies during threshold times. What wisdom do our bodies hold during times like these? What are one or two practices that aid in listening to our bodies?
Change, in general, can bring automatic responses of fear or anxiety, which either limit or shut down our senses and our ability to be fully present to the moment and our surroundings. While these automatic responses of our sympathetic nervous system might help in the face of immediate physical danger, they leave us less equipped for the complexities of threshold times and can hamper our human capacity to shape a new and better future. Finding ways to engage our whole bodies, in any time but especially in the midst of great change, will give us access to wisdom we need—messages of pain as well as joy and opportunities for healing and resilience. In addition, the body is where we experience our connectedness with one another and with the earth and other beings. Many of the thresholds we’re on today—whether it’s the pandemic or climate change or systemic racism—require that we feel the world’s pain as our own so that we might respond with choices that lead to healing.
It is important to slow down.
The most basic embodied practice available to us in any moment and any place, is to bring attention to our breathing. The breath’s rhythm of taking in and then releasing reminds us that life is made of gift and loss in every moment. It teaches us to take what we need and let go of the rest. Not coincidentally, paying attention to our breath and slowing it down—breathing in fully and slowly through the nose; and breathing out, a little longer on the exhale, through the mouth (sometimes slowing the breath by slightly pursing the lips)—is a simple way to settle our nervous system and return to the present moment with less anxiety. If we learn how to do this when change heightens our fears, we will give ourselves more choices in how we respond to any moment. That pausing, and the skill of listening—to God, ourselves and others—will be the most important skills we can develop for transformative threshold living.
You told the CCI teams, “Worship is itself a liminal experience as time outside of time, inviting an encounter with God and making room for transformation.” What have you learned about worship and preserving and deepening its liminal time and space while your congregation worships online?
It’s a real challenge for all of us, isn’t it? In-person worship intentionally creates liminal time and space in many ways that are no longer givens with online worship. Each person logging on to worship online will be in unique surroundings that may or may not be protected from interruption or distraction. And we know that technology itself can interfere with the most sacred moments shared online.
In our church, as in many others too, we’ve learned to both emphasize the rituals of beginning and ending our worship time and to encourage those participating online to practice those rituals (lighting a candle or singing or speaking along) as well. We also increased the time and energy devoted to telling a story for all ages, in which our religious education director addresses the children, telling theological stories that all generations enjoy. That gives families something to share with their young ones as a worship experience at home. Finally, we also named technology glitches as opportunities to have a “human moment” and that encouraged an attitude of forgiveness— toward ourselves and others and the technology itself.
What advice would you offer to congregational leaders who are exhausted?
It is important to slow down. To take time to pause, to settle our fears and anxieties, and to listen to our own hearts, to others, and to God’s calling. We might be tempted to hurry up because everything is changing so fast, we feel we have to keep up. But I’m struck by the wisdom Bayo Akomolafe shares from his Nigerian roots: “The times are urgent; therefore, we must slow down.”
Then, when we’ve slowed down, we can use that time for discernment, asking what in this moment will help more of us to thrive? What choices, going forward, will allow us as a congregation to participate in the transformation we long for, among our members and within the wider communities we serve and support? What might we be asked to let go of to make that transformation possible?
How can Christian congregations practice living into the questions and unknowns that are so prevalent during threshold times?
Our questions will often be more important than any answers. Also, any answers that come will require us to hold them lightly, as in time they may likely lead to new questions and different answers.
Henry Nelson Wieman once said, “If my home is in creativity itself, I can undergo great changes without despair.” Understanding that God’s call and creation is always unfolding means that our invitation as people of faith is to prayerfully, joyfully, and lovingly participate in that creation; and that, I believe is the gift of our threshold times. Despite all the challenges and losses, the sorrows and fears, and even deep exhaustion these times have brought, they also open the way for what could be a bold new future of greater justice, deeper peace, and lasting love. That is my hope and prayer.
Our invitation as people of faith is to prayerfully, joyfully, and lovingly participate in creation.
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