Thresholds

The Pain of Moving Forward or Staying the Same

“At the sound of [seraphim] voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined!’”

~ Isaiah 6:4-5a ~

Standing at a threshold can be daunting. Metaphorically and actually.

Coat on, hat secure, shoes tied, wallet, phone, keys. Yet I stop, patting pockets and other places muttering to myself, “What am I forgetting?”

I turn my back to the door, perusing the kitchen with a mixture of thought and frustration creasing my forehead. I touch my pockets for the fourth time going through a mental checklist, occasionally verbalizing “check.”

Nothing’s missing.

But I can’t shake the feeling. I’m certain I’m forgetting something. Something important. So important that as soon as I get on the road, I’ll hit the steering wheel with an angry, “Dangit! I forgot [fill in the blank],” as I debate whether to turn around or simply do without.

But here. At the threshold. The item hides from both mind and eyes. I search a bit more, shake my head, suppress my angst, swivel toward my exit, and pass through the open door. Hoping for the best.

I’m standing at a threshold right now. Spiritually. For several years my world has systematically crumbled. For too long, I’ve searched for the guilty party, leaving no one unquestioned. Myself included. But recently, a more terrifying thought has surfaced: maybe there’s no one to blame.

Yes, there’s enough fault to satisfy every participant, but ultimately, standing at the threshold of upheaval and indecision, grief and fear, I search my pockets for the guilty and find nothing. I sift through stacks of disheveled papers on the counter and find nothing. No accusations. No culpability. No one to blame.

Which is horrifying. Bewildering, really. For, on some level, when there’s someone to condemn, for whatever was done or not done, I feel more in control. More centered. My energy justifiably focused on poignant arguments to secure the verdict I’m certain will soothe my soul.

But what now? Where do I focus my ire? Where do I point to explain this systematic upheaval of life, family, service, and faith?

Me?

This is my default setting: self-accusation. Where I typically toss and turn in prayers and pondering early in the morning at the threshold of the sun’s rising where night flees from the light searching for any trace, any modicum of self-guilt. Self-lashing is easy, especially when you’re raised in legalistic pews. But I know, this time, it simply doesn’t fit.

Without question, there are things I could’ve done different or better or with greater grace and more effort at overtures for peace. Missteps and mistakes flood my journals and pepper my prayer closet. But I now, know, that ultimately, I can’t take the blame. However heroic that may seem. To me or to others.

My counselor should be credited with this insight. Over two years, I sat in his cozy enclave, fit with cliché leather furniture and a Keurig for chamomile and lavender tea. Meticulously, we combed over every situation, unpacked each conversation without care for preserving the box or anyone’s feelings, especially my own. And the result wasn’t what I wanted or expected, “Shane, to be totally honest, blaming yourself for what’s happened simply doesn’t satisfy all the evidence. Your world falling apart just wasn’t your fault.”

I was appalled. Scared. Estranged at the threshold of belief, fully convinced this conclusion simply could not be.

Leaving the final session, I reached for the door’s knob and felt like I was forgetting something. Like maybe one more run through the last five years could uncover the keys I’m certain are here but we’ve just overlooked. But he was confident. Resolute. “Shane, it wasn’t your fault. You’re ready to step into what’s next.”

Thresholds are unfair. They seem to smile with eyebrows raised, inviting everyone to adventures as flamboyant as Narnia. But rarely do they reveal the cost of passing through the wardrobe. For thresholds contain not just the “new you” but the “familiar you” that you must grieve. That you must leave. That you must exchange for all that’s unknown.

Thresholds demand a commitment to the unfamiliar. A courage to traverse terrain unexplored. Where what worked once before does so no longer.

I’m standing at a threshold, and self-lashing can’t help me. Doesn’t proffer the fruit it once promised. It must be left behind. Exchanged for something far less satisfying, like the love of self.

So, I look to others. Confident blame will certainly find a home there.

But I’m immediately repulsed. Sure, I’ve courted bitterness and vengeance a bit too promiscuously, but I’m certain, now, their promises are empty. Their cost doesn’t ever return much of a reward. Frankly, I’m tired of both as bedfellows. They disturb sleep, distort reality, and damn everyone involved to a sentence far more severe than any of the events require.

So, I search my past. My distant past. The ever-present pest to my present.

It’s hard to quantify how often wounds from my past are uncovered as a persistent offender in the here and now. Ignoring the pain doesn’t work, confronting it only seems to increase its strength, or at least its agitation, and regardless of how strenuous I run, I can’t ever outpace it. The past simply finds a way to control, or at least influence, almost every interaction and interpretation of now. The past molests my present, distorting what is with what should be. Or maybe “what should have been.”

I turn to the past, readied with weapons to exact my sentence for its devastation on my present circumstance. But it retreats. More like surrenders. Bows in submission, unwilling and unable to take the blame.

Standing at the threshold, I realize now what’s missing. Where the blame truly lies. But I fear the risk. I revisit my pockets once more, search the room for any other option, any other source. But I lower my head. Perhaps in prayer. Or maybe in defeat.

“God? Is this you?” I quiver. “This systematic unraveling. Is it you? Are you to blame?”

I heard somewhere along the way that a mother bird, at a certain point, will begin to intentionally make the nest uncomfortable for her children. In the days leading up to birth, the mother will meticulously collect and craft each limb of the nest in preparation for her eggs. Once delivered, the mother will fervently perch on her stick throne, providing the exact temperature for her children to mature. Once born, the mother feeds, protects, and provides everything for her beloved. But the one thing the mother can’t do for them is fly. And without flight, would a bird still be a bird?

The safety of the nest, then, becomes the greatest threat to the life of the birdling. The mother knows it, and loves her children enough to not let them stay. A threshold must be enforced.

When I think of God and thresholds, I think of the Passover. The horrific climax of the Exodus where death is unleashed on the firstborn of the unfaithful. Yet for his own, God lathers the threshold with lamb’s blood, covering his beloved like a mother hen protects her chicks under her wings, so that when danger comes, he secures them behind the threshold. Keeping evil out and his own within.

Which reminds me of Jesus when he declares, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (Jn 10:9). It’s that last phrase, though, that concerns me. Sheep cannot merely cower in the pen. The shepherd knows this. Yes, the gate is essential to keep evil out, but the pasture can only provide for those brave enough to cross the threshold. To go through the door trusting the voice and vision of the Good Shepherd.

At the threshold, I feel my courage falter. Shutter as I stand by the open door. How do I step? How do I move beyond? Why is this happening at all?

I don’t believe God creates conflict or pain, as if he needs evil to accomplish his good. But I also believe God wastes nothing. He is efficient in his artistry. Intent on teaching me to fly.

Boldy, I turn. I stand at the threshold. Clutching forgiveness and grace, mercy and belief. I reach for the knob as fear and doubt unsettle my conflicted heart. Yet I hear him. Whispering beyond the door. “It’s time my child. Step through the veil, for every ending is a new beginning in me.”

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