Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Liminal...

To be marginal in one's society is not, emphatically not, to withdraw as some would charge. It is to be motivated and led by values and commitments different from and often contrary to the mainstream... New vision is always what any society most needs, and the edges of society have always been the most likely place for it to emerge. To generate something new, one must be listening to voices other than the loud voices of mass society.

If we have read our Bibles, we will know to look and listen for the new word God wants to speak to us on the edges of things rather than at the center of wealth and power. To be on the margins, therefore, is to put ourselves in a position to watch, to listen, and to become engaged in a new way... Part of being on the margins is new association with the people who have been made marginal. The gospel tells us that it is among "the least of these" where we find Jesus.

Jim Wallis, The Call to Conversion, with thanks to Inward/Outward

I think this sense of living "on the margins", this sense that God's new word will be found out on the edges of things, is deeply embedded in the core of what it means to be a Franciscan. St. Francis himself lived all his life on the margins; his influence may have extended even in his own time to the centre of the Church's political existence, but his life was lived far away, in the poor streets and villages around Assisi, on the empty slopes of La Verna.

My own Franciscan journey so far has been much more a process of discovering reasons and precedents for the things I have all my life sensed and longed for, rather than a matter of learning texts or rules. I have since I was very young had an instinctive nervousness of success, of being at the centre, where it was all happening. Oh, like most kids, I thought I wanted fame and recognition; but any time I have looked like getting close, something far deeper in me has recoiled. I used not to understand it, but as I have grown older I have come to see this not as a negative shying away from the limelight, but as a positive longing for hiddenness, a positive sense that I was called to the margins, that I was only whole and in God's purpose out of the edge of things.

I even love liminal places for themselves: shorelines, the place where the sky meets the plain, horizons of every kind. The very word, borderline, resonates with something at the deepest level of what I am.

If I could make any kind of appeal or message out of this, it would simply be to look into yourself for the things that call to you, that cry out in your heart in the night: the odd reactions you have to things, the strange and often counter-cultural preferences that would shape your life if only you'd let them; and look for God's call in those things. For myself, this has been a truer discernment than any of the more conventional varieties, which all too often have lead me down blind alleys, and into dead ends!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

I have just recently discovered your blog and the Eremos recordings. I find the recent posts in your blog full of insight and food for thought.

The Eremos recordings are terrific, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in having them as a netlabel release on Webbed Hand Records. If so, contact me via the website: www.webbedhandrecords.com/contact/

--C.P. McDill

Mike Farley said...

C.P. I'm delighted that you like the blog and the Eremos music... I know Webbed Hand Records of old, and I'll most certainly be in touch via your contact link.

Very good to meet you...

Mike

Tausign said...

“…the edges of things, is deeply embedded in the core...” This phrase immediately jumped out at me and I can’t help but think of Francis always wanting to swap his clothing with someone who appeared poorer than he. His pre-conversion days were profoundly worldly but he allowed himself to be transformed because of his faithfulness in yielding unreservedly to the Lord’s promptings.

Actually, in one sense, regarding his relationship to Jesus and the Church, he was able to burrow very much into the core without being spun off onto a tangent like other penitential movements around him at the time; (movements that rejected the culture and orthodox faith simultaneously and resulted in disillusionment rather than fulfillment).

But you’re right, when he drives down into the mystical core of faith he emerges always at the margins. This is not so much being ‘countercultural’ or ‘on the edge of things’ (to my mind) as being freed from entanglements which he knew from experience would fasten chains around him.

Great post! Peace and all good.

Jane R said...

Dear Mike, thank you for this reflection on liminality and so much else. Do you know Bill Countryman's book Living on the Border of the Holy: Renewing the Priesthood of All? I think you would like it. Here is the Amazon U.S. listing: you can use the "search inside" feature and read a tiny bit of text. I see the book is available on Amazon U.K. (though there isn't the handy search feature on the site to look inside the book).

Mike Farley said...

Wonderful, Jane! You're right, this is my kind of book. I'll get a copy ASAP. Loads of thanks, Mike.

Tausign - thanks for the thoughtful comments. You're quite right about Francis' core relationship with Jesus, and with the Church as the mystical body of Christ - with our Lady, too, come to that. What I was talking about here was his position as regards society, and as regards the Church as structure. I always think there is a tension in our living within the church, between our membership of body of Christ, and our membership of a complex and all too human organisation! I think by living at the centre of the one and at the margins of the other, Francis showed us a possible way. In this he often reminds me of people like St. Isaac of Nineveh... Pax! Mike

Jan said...

Mike, thank you for this reflection on Brother Ramon, whom I discovered through you. Also, your words about liminal spaces remind me to trust the uncertain spots I keep finding myself in recently.

Most of all, thank you for your comment on my blog today. I treasure your words and our growing connection.

Tausign said...

Mike you point is well taken and I charitably twisted it to suit my own insight. This post resonated with me - so much so that it stirred a post at my own blog which is linked below. Do drop in. Peace and all good.