Liminality, Front and Center: Part I (theory)
(Warning: I’m working on a resolution to expand scripture study past the musings already jotted in my margins. As a result, my thoughts on spiritual issues aren’t exactly well-refined at the moment. They’re in progress. Which so far as this post goes, is sort of the point. But just so you know, this is probably a bit of a ramble.)
Last week’s Sunday School lesson concerned the woman at the well. She fetched water in the middle of the day, theoretically to avoid those in her community who would ostracize her status as a 5-times divorcee living with a man without the benefit of wedlock. By choosing to speak with her, Christ not only converses with an adulterer and a Samaritan (considered apostate sell-outs by the Jews), He chooses her as the first person to whom He reveals His divine identity. My whole life I’ve heard people fuss over this story, and rightly so. But lately I’ve been pondering that Jesus wasn’t just showing us what a great barrier-breaking hippie He’d make or offering some patronizing lesson about extending kindness to even “the least of these.” The woman at the well starts the story on her community’s fringe. She leaves the well to become Christ’s first evangelist; she becomes central to Christian communitas. By the story’s close, she isn’t the “least” of anything.
Anthropologist Victor Turner coined the term “liminal space” to define the spot occupied by those in transition, their feet on the “limen,” or threshold of change. In the church we tend to use the term as a catch-all for those who struggle, to qualify those shuffling their feet outside the doorways of orthodoxy, eyes downcast and apart from the community’s full-hearted embrace. But Turner defined “communitas” as the bonded group which experiences shared liminality. In communitas, unity transcends rank. The groupthink chrysalis serves as facilitator to true change, true revelation. I don’t believe liminality exists–or should exist, anyhow–at the church’s fringe. In Christ’s church, the liminal, the space of transition and boundary-crossing and questions and doorways, becomes paradoxically the center of faith.
Consider three examples: baptism, temple attendance, and partaking of the sacrament. (Part II will delve into less-formalized examples, btw.) Baptism involves the personal choice to accept Jesus, but also the personal responsibility to shoulder the burdens of others and become part of a group. It is the change we talk of in Alma 5. Partaking of the sacrament recognizes that both as individuals and as a congregation our commitment requires renewal, that we ALL remain on the “limen.” Temples are by definition liminal since they serve as meeting place between heaven and earth. They are both. They are neither. And temple attendance involves either the metaphorical or (if you attend an older temple) literal crossing of thresholds. You’re forever changing rooms, experiencing transition. The moment you feel comfortable, you raise your hand in assent to new change and move your body to new land. What do these covenants have in common, besides their tie-in to Christ? They involve community, and they invoke vulnerability and the unknown. The baptismal pool lowers you into a watery grave without breath. Sacrament observance discomfittingly requires ingesting (if only metaphorically) the blood and flesh of a God your acts helped crucify, the God you as-of-yet-are-not, a reminder of the transition not yet complete. And the temple? The penultimate moment of temple worship involves the literal stance upon a threshold, embracing Christ with faith before–not after–you see and completely understand His kingdom.
Ordinances are thus both private and public, offering both the peace of commitment and the slightly discordant knowledge that our commitment alone is not enough. We require Christ. And we require each other. We may not be the person stepping into the font or sporting the blue tag on our confusing temple robes, but we have been there. I have to believe that sharing the experience serves to interrupt time’s linear forward march in favor of moments of eternity: when we say “amen” to the baptismal prayer or help someone get their robes on the correct shoulder, we place ourselves with them, in their moments of transformation and thus back into our own. This unity should remind us of our shared place, the communitas of those in transformation. We all take the sacrament alike; we shed earthly rank at the edge of the watery pool. I think, at least, that this unity should overcome or outweigh the hierarchy required to maintain organizational cohesion. The latter is merely the means of delivering the former. Sometimes we allow structure to replace what structure should facilitate, substituting liminoid pacification for the shared experience of the threshold. (But that’s another post altogether.)
I love the story of the woman at the well. I love the New Testament. Studying it reminds me that during his earthly ministry, Jesus offered more questions than answers. He spoke in riddles. He baffled those who held Him dear. He kept them on their toes, slightly off balance, and in doing so offered the great paradoxical salvation of grace. As the community of Christ we should occupy the space of transition–both individually and as a group–and make it central to our faith and our practice. Think of the New Testament’s moments of true awakening–Jarius’ daughter, Lazarus, the empty tomb and Mary in the doorway. They all involve confusion, blinking eyes, the sense of temporary discomfort and pain which precede rejoicing. Liminal experience demands emotional vulnerability–what we locate in the person struggling to understand apart from the “norm.” Yet ironically it is these people who most often feel excluded from community. Instead, those who struggle can help transform not only themselves but those from whom they have felt segregated. To offer your questions, your vulnerability, and your weakness is to remind congregants of our shared vulnerability before God and of the openness indicative of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. What the questioner offers a congregation is exactly what Christ requires.
(Still to come–Part II: Practice, or dealing with the woman at the well. Especially when you’re her!)
Interesting thoughts. Is it possible that the Church has to go through both phases - that when it is composed of the liminal people, and a phase where it is accepted and the norm? Perhaps both situations are necessary to test different people in different ways.
Perhaps that is why I find it more enjoyable to be a member of the Church in areas where it is the minority.
Also - is there a difference between being a questioner and asking questions?
Comment by SilverRain — February 13, 2007 @ 8:49 am
SilverRain–You ask good questions which get at the issue of liminal space within liminal space. I think part of my point is that the entire experience of church fellowship is liminal in relationship to the rest of the world. We aren’t yet in the kingdom of God, but neither are we solely bound to the stuff of this earth. All of us will experience different liminal phases while within the church (liminality within liminality)–and I think it’s important to remember that when we see (or are) the person who struggles on Sunday. Within liminality there’s a norm, but we–or I, anyhow–sometimes get obsessed with that norm rather than the idea of boundary crossing. I find that unfortunate. In such a case the “norm” becomes stasis, which is less than Jesus requires. (By stasis I don’t mean quiet reflection but rather an odd affection for the liminoid, which only counterfeits encounters with the divine.)
I suppose there’s a difference between a questioner who questions just to annoy people and a person who questions in order to learn. I try to assume everyone who asks questions has sincere intent, even though they may make others uncomfortable. Passivity might lead to comfort, but rarely to growth.
Comment by Janet — February 13, 2007 @ 9:24 am
This gets, I think, to the heart of Christianity - that we never can live up to the command to “be ye therefore perfect,” but also, that God loves us perfectly anyway. We are always in a state of development and transition, always fallen, and yet always, at least potentially, saved. We bear both the image of God and of the natural man.
Ideally, this breeds humility and gratitude rather than insecurity. Too often, I think, we skew to the latter.
Comment by Matt B — February 13, 2007 @ 10:20 am
Great post Janet!
Comment by mami — February 13, 2007 @ 10:54 am
Liminality and communitas are powerful concepts, and I’m glad you’re sharing your musings with us. The thing I’m still trying to figure out are the connections between communitas and social structure. Both the temple and military boot camp come to mind: in both participants are stripped of their former identities, reclothed and renamed. Then through shared, egalitarian experiences in which all symbols of distinction are removed, they are bonded together powerfully (the experience of communitas). After these liminal phases, however, the participants emerge into societies that are extremely hierarchical. Any thoughts on this?
Comment by JohnR — February 13, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
One thing the Bloggernacle does for me is to expose me to new vocabulary — so “liminality” is the word I didn’t know for the feeling that is very familiar, of becoming something new, stepping into the unknown, looking at familiar texts in new ways, not being quite satisfied but reaching to understand or be more. Thanks!
I like the way you’ve captured both the private and public faces of the ordinances, too.
Comment by Ardis Parshall — February 13, 2007 @ 7:10 pm
Janet - I think I see more what you mean, now. Is it that the liminal nature of our religion ought to lead us to better understanding of others who are liminal within the religion, and that that transitory existance is actually necessary to true spirituality?
#5 John - I’ve never thought of the temple as stripping people of their identities. It always seemed to me that it was building on one’s identity. I’ve also never felt the temple as a bonding/community experience. It has seemed to me to be a deeply individual thing. I suppose I don’t really know how to share my thoughts on what you said, since I don’t see it the same way.
Comment by SilverRain — February 14, 2007 @ 9:43 am
Janet,
I loved this post for so many reasons, I had to delurk long enough to tell you so. You had several insights that were particularly meaningful for me. Everything from realizing how we all identify with the woman at the well, to the way our faith progression is intended to be structured - thresholds in series - to the reminder of how we once again approach Christ. My faith is strong, but I have so many questions that I allow myself to be distracted by. My neophyte scholarship proves faith-promoting only occasionally, but as my husband reminds me, Faith first, then Answers. This is the pattern. This post squarely repositioned me back where I want to be. I wish I had written it or something as profound, but meanwhile I can only say Wow! and offer a heartful thanks.
Comment by SL — February 14, 2007 @ 11:09 am
Also, this concept of liminality is now redefining how I view my faith and my life experiences. What a wonderful perspective.
Comment by SL — February 14, 2007 @ 11:11 am
Janet - This brings to mind the idea of the “forgotten ones.” There are those among us who do not create that large of a splash, and when they present themselves they do so without any flare or pomp. There consequently find themselves shoved aside, trodden upon, and ignored while attempting to mesh with their community. Sometimes I am so caught up in my own world that I look less upon the sentiments and needs of another in order to allow my world to remain constant. I don’t fear change, it is just sometimes uncomfortable to surround myself with others, especially when their lives so abrasively contradict my own. I think that our (or perhaps just my) failure to curb disgust or inadequacy will limit the concept of liminality from anchoring itself.
Comment by keith — February 14, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
I don’t have anything to add, but I do want to say that posts like this are the types of thing I adore most about the blogernacle. Like calling into question some of the assuptions I live by and don’t even notice because they are so central to my world view (for instance that believers in the comfy center are those to whom proper Mormonism/Christianity is most natural)
Comment by fMhLisa — February 14, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
SilverRain (#7): I don’t mean the “identity-stripping” in any pejorative sense, and you’re right that identity-building takes place in the temple. Maybe another approach would be to say that individual identity is secondary to a common one (esp. during the endowment). The temple helps to build a sense of common identity rather than providing opportunities to highlight individual uniqueness.
At church, everyone is much more differentiated: by calling, by attire, by the roles they may play in a class (teaching, speaking a lot, remaining silent, walking out with a crying infant, etc.) In an endowment session, with the exception of the officiators (and gender), everyone is dressed the same, performs the same actions, say the same words.
Within the liminal space of the temple, differences are erased, or at the very least minimized–and this is one of the definitions of communitas. When you leave the temple, the differences return. I guess what I’m trying to say is that temple helps to forge solidarity between the Saints, a common identity.
Comment by JohnR — February 14, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
The difference is that Boot Camp is the initiation into a hierarchical world, while the person entering the temple initiation has already been part of the hierarchy, and in fact is getting a glimpse of a very different world, before getting let out again. The Temple initiation is something of a reverse Young Goodman Brown situation. Doesn’t initiate the person into the church, but rather into a world of spirituality which the church hierachy is forbidden to even touch. We covenant not to discuss our temple experiences outside the temple, precisely so that we don’t interpret them for each other, and the church hierarchy does not interpret them for us.
Boot camp initiates the recruit into the army hierarchy; the temple initiation brings a well-established member of the church into a spiritual circle outside of the church hierarchy.
Excellent example for contrast, JohnR.
Comment by Christian — February 14, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
Oooh, Christian made a Hawthorne reference! Swoon! LOVE Hawthorne. I think Joseph Smith ping-ponged between Emerson and Hawthorne, something I do on regular occasions. I even wrote part of my doctoral exams about the religious tension between the two, and the whole thing was really about Mormonism (without mentioning the word).
Comment by Janet — February 14, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
SL, Matt, Lisa, Mami and Ardis–thanks! Exactly what I was going for :). Plus your comments cheer me on a Valentine’s Day when DH is not only on call all night (sigh) but I have frickin’ food poisoning!
SilverRain–Yup!
JohnR–Honestly, I’m too sick to really parse what I want to say in response to your fine question. Christian got part of it. I may tackle a bunch of the issues you raise in another post, the one where I want to talk about the difference between liminoid and liminal experiences. The former seems to rely on structure–almost like called responses in a concert or a football game. In LDS religious life that could mean the “automatic” weeping a congregation indulges in whenever a person high in the heirarchy speaks. Which doesn’t mean some of the weeping isn’t liminal. I had a liminal experience while a GA I’ve usually felt, uh, a little nervous about was speaking. It helped me deal with the heirarchy issue, actually.
But that’s not what you’re asking about. I really am too sick to answer properly, but let me restate my belief that heirarchy exists in order to ensure cohesion of a gigantic institution. It’s an apparatus, not an end. The tension between the appartus and what its meant to convey can either be extremely deleterious or transformative (tension is like that, yes?). Mormonism even parses a difference between forgiveness by the church and forgiveness by God, a distinction I find useful in separating individual identity and faith while still forgrounding the necessity of community.
Oh goodness, I feel wretched and am babbling. For now, go with Christian’s lovely *Young Goodman Brown* thing. If you are a Hawthorne fan, here’s a “trailer” for what I’d really like to say: at some point I think the institutional body of the church (and me in it) will find ourselves living Robin’s experience from “My Kinsman, Major Molineaux.” The temple prepares us for it. It’s still going to scare the heebie jeebies out of us. But hey, I could be wrong.
Comment by Janet — February 14, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
SL–a separate comment for you, to thank you for “delurking” long enough to make my day. Really. It’s a bad day and with my health I have a lot of those. One of the very few ways I can find to try and reach out to people and make the world slightly brighter is by blogging (yikes, the arrogance!). To read that my musings actually positively influence the way someone approaches their faith means the world to me. I’d been promised in blessings my writing and teaching would be able to do this, but homebound sicko girl has felt pretty much a failure in that dept. lately. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Comment by Janet — February 14, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
Keith–you’re in good company. We all do this sometimes. Some weeks I feel so “fringy” myself that I can’t see the person struggling beside me; other weeks I’m basking in the comfort of the known and simply forget to notice. I think Christ does ask us to do better, but I think smacking ourselves over the head at past failures resembles a less than optimal method for improvement :).
Your last sentence reminds me of inertia. Objects at rest tend to remain at rest, just as ones moving tend to keep going. I worry that, as congregations, we tend to remain “at rest” when it comes to embracing liminality–our own and that of others. Your comment strikes at the heart of the tension between our divine spark and our commonality as members of a fallen tribe.
Comment by Janet — February 14, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
Wheee, look at me–I’m padding my own post! Heh heh! But I’m sick and my honey is gone and it’s Valentine’s Day, so sue me!!!!
Seriously I do adore you all. You all really have made a bad day much better. Happy Valentine’s Day, my beloved shared members of the human race
Comment by Janet — February 14, 2007 @ 7:52 pm
Janet,
Your post was deeply, thought-provokingly beautiful. Thanks for a great V-day present!
Comment by Rich — February 14, 2007 @ 8:55 pm
Janet, I just loved this post (even though it is yet another ‘nacle post that makes me feel like a drooling idiot without an original thought in my head). The more life experience I get, the more I have to let go of the “rules” I thought I had figured out in my attempt to impose some kind of predictable order on my world. Eventually those rules break down as I learn that some thing/act/belief/person/whatever is not always as I believed it to be and isn’t so easily categorized. I love the idea of liminality and its potential for community-building as well as personal growth. Thank you–I’ll be thinking about this for a long time and look forward to the next installment.
Comment by Idahospud — February 14, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Janet, I didn’t have a chance to comment yesterday, but I read your post and it was one of those moments in life where I am dumbstruck by the fact that there are so many things that other people know and think about, that I have never even heard of! Sometimes I think I must simply just be an idiot! Till your post, I’d never even heard the word “Liminal”, so I looked it up in the dictionary and discovered what it means. There is something I can so relate to about the word…I think my whole life has been a study in liminality. “Liminially Me” seems like a good moniker at the moment
Anyway, thank you for broadening my mind…I’m excited to read and ponder further thoughts on this subject, and am particularly grateful for you right now in turning my mind back towards things of the spirit when so much of my head has been wrapped around distractions of this life. I wish you were feeling better! Your PB is right…you have a natural gift as a teacher. Thank you for sharing yourself!
~one of your many benefactors, Blue
Comment by Blue — February 14, 2007 @ 11:56 pm
Janet great insights. I’ve been away for sometime moving and getting settled, but now I’m back. One of my last posts was to LisaB about a year ago. She made me feel welcome to come to SLC. Her wish for me is already coming true. See below:
Emma’s Son–Mmmm…. nice addition. In some ways our brothers and sisters in the gospel do serve as surrogates when our biological families are not of our faith, or even just when they are far away. May the dessert blossom as a rose for you and yours.
Comment by LisaB — January 23, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
Today I wrote: ” Peace be Still ”
The Good Lord has freed me from NY after 5 generations of taxes and traffic not to mention hurricanes and corporate pains. Yes, I’m free, free, free at last. I was a little worried last summer when my house wasn’t selling as fast as I hoped. Ever since New Orleans the media had been predicting many hurricanes for the summer of 2006 heading up the coast hitting NY. What an evil wish, but even in my dreams I saw Long Beach flooded with the oceans seas. Most of my dreams come true within a year or two. I had hoped to sell my house before the hurricane season started, but with a slow market I would be lucky to sell by October. I felt the weight of the world upon me in June of 06. I went to my priesthood leader and requested a blessing to help me bare my burdens. After which I went to the Lord in mighty prayer. He spoke to me by the still small voice and said, “Peace be still there will be no hurricanes for you this season.” How true his words turned out to be and how wrong the media was. However, the greater sign was when I arrived at our fully furnished Condo in SLC upon Capitol Hill. In our bedroom upon the wall was a large painting of the Savior standing on the bow of a boat with his fearful disciples. His hand was stretched out over the stormy sea as he said, “Peace be still.” I knew than as I know now that this is the place the Lord would have me be for outside our bedroom window shines the most glorious Salt Lake Temple.
Comment by Emma's Son — February 15, 2007 @ 2:53 am
thank you Janet…
I have been struggling emotionally with some things in the church and the temple, and your writings about them were truly touching to me. as someone who feels so “liminal” at the moment this has helped me feel some stability and purpose (are those the right words? Not sure but they will have to do for now.)
It has helped me spiritually. thank you.
ps hope you feel better!
Comment by G — February 15, 2007 @ 9:23 am