Has pausing and social distancing awakened in you a call to something more? Are you called to a new way of being? Is there a feeling in your heart that you can’t quiet?
In his book of blessings, poet John O’Donohue offers wisdom on crossing “thresholds.” Thresholds are places of transition and change that call us out of our current way of being and into a new way of being.
O’Donohue offers a description of thresholds: “To change is one of the great dreams of every heart—to change the limitations, the sameness, the banality, or the pain. So often we look back on patterns of behavior, the kind of decisions we make repeatedly and that have failed to serve us well, and we aim for a new and more successful path or way of living. But change is difficult for us, so we often opt to continue the old pattern, rather than risking the danger of difference. We are also often surprised by change that seems to arrive out of nowhere. We find ourselves crossing some new threshold we had never anticipated.”
Maybe your life has suddenly changed and you are trying to adapt to a new way of being. Maybe you are feeling a calling to cross the threshold of this moment and enter a new way of being, or maybe life has pushed you across the threshold with little warning. If you are experiencing indecision or fear in the face of change, there is comfort to be found. Regardless of where we ARE, we can always try something new instead of the “same-old-thing.” We can always try making friends with our uneasiness and taking even the tiniest step toward a different way of being with hope and heart. Embracing vulnerability and courageously moving one step forward might just be the best thing we can ever do for ourselves.
“Cross this threshold with a sense of trust in whatever is emerging,” O’Donohue says. “This becomes essential when a threshold opens suddenly in front of you, one for which you had no preparation. This could be an illness, suffering of loss. Because we are so engaged with the world, we usually forget how fragile life can be and how vulnerable we always are.” By cultivating a spiritual growth-mindset and by making meaningful sacrifices in favor of peace, social justice and sustainability, or whatever your calling may be, we gain the clarity needed to make the next step toward change. Unfortunately, the fear of change and the sense of vulnerability that accompanies it only becomes stronger in proportion to the change we wish to call into our lives.
If your life is calling you to something new, here is a prayer that can accompany you on the journey and help to cultivate the courage you need to make the next step.
For Longing
by John O’Donohue (from Bless the Space Between Us)Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity and friendship—
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.May the one you long for long for you.
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs
for you.
—Jessica Lien, Prairiewoods development coordinator