About 100 years ago when I was a student at Duke Divinity School, we had our own seminary newsletter called “The Between Times.” I never really thought much about it being called “The Between Times” until a non-seminary friend asked me why it had such a weird name.
And then it hit me. Oh, yeah. I guess that is a little odd. What does that mean, the between times? Well, it means liminality, being in the middle part of a transition, being on the threshold, not really where you once were but not having fully arrived at the place where you’re going to be. It’s waiting for the next stage. Holding your breath during the not quite there yet. Living in the "not yet" that connects what was and what is yet to be. Being stuck in The Between Times.
This photograph I took while wandering around Iona strikes me as a good illustration of that idea of the liminal. You can stand on the sand and look out at the ocean, and there is a certain point at which the water and the sky seem to meet. The horizon blurs into a blue-grey haze, and you can't see what lies beyond. You may trust that you won't fall off the edge of the world if you keep going forward into the sea, and you may know intellectually that eventually you will see land if you get out there far enough, but you can't quite see it for yourself just yet. It's exciting. It's invigorating. It's scary. It's unsettling.
We live in a time of tremendous change, of social upheaval, of political unrest, of uncertainty, of division, of transition. In obstetrical terms, transition is the shortest but hardest stage of labor. It is nearly always painful; it is always intense. A woman in transition relies heavily on her support person to remind her to breathe as she experiences strong contractions. She may feel as if she cannot do the hard work of bringing another human being into the world. She may fear that she and the baby are going to die. But when the midwife/nurse/doctor/coach reassures her that she can and will deliver the child, breathes with her and encourages her to focus on her own breath, the laboring mother feels a power surge and a renewed sense of determination to bear down and give birth to her new, long-awaited gift of love.
I am currently on transition leave in the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church. It is a curiously liminal state of being in which I alternate between delight and excitement about my coming appointment with the Methodist Church in Britain and moments of sheer panic when I wonder how I will learn to drive in the UK and ponder how hard it will be to adjust to so much that is new and unfamiliar. Seeing the sea touch the sky and not being able to quite see the other shore is enough to freeze me into inertia, into throwing my hands up and glibly saying that God will provide. But abandoning any sense of my own responsibility and agency is not the answer, just as trying to do everything all on my own is not a solution.
John and Charles Wesley encountered Moravians on the ship Simmonds on their way to the colony of Georgia, and they were impressed by their faith and courage during the nasty storms that roiled the Atlantic Ocean during their crossing. During one particularly vicious bout of high winds and mountainous waves, John Wesley observed them singing a hymn, and after the storm had abated, he asked if they had been afraid. To his surprise, they replied that neither the men, women, nor children feared the sea's fury because they put their lives into God's hands. In his journal, Wesley recorded his own fright at what looked like certain death and his longing for that same strong faith.
Upon arrival, the brothers embarked on a largely disappointing ministry. Charles became too ill to remain and returned home after only a few months. Emotionally scarred and spiritually depleted, John returned to England 2 years later where he endured months of transition, wondering and waiting and watching as God's call for his particular ministry began to unfold. Along the way, he found his faith renewed and his heart "strangely warmed" as he lived into God's will for his life and the birth of his "child" called Methodism.
Having become fluent in German during his time in Georgia alongside the Moravians, he had translated several hymns from that language into English, including one called "Give To the Winds Thy Fears." It has been suggested that he learned the first stanza during that stormy voyage to Georgia and that it brought him comfort. At any rate, sixteen stanzas of the hymn in English were first published in his 1739 collection
Hymns and Sacred Poems in Charlestown (now Charleston), South Carolina. It has brought peace to the hearts of many who have faced their own storms and anxieties during the between times. During this liminal time of my life, as I look ahead, I, too want to give the winds my fears, trusting that God is taking into account my sighs, tears, and doubts, replacing them with hope, joy, and commitment. If you find that your heart is anxious right now, may you be blessed by pondering these verses as you, too, live in the between times.
Give to the winds thy fears,
hope and be undismayed;
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears;
God shall lift up thy head.
Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears the way;
wait thou His time, so shall this night
soon end in joyous day.
Still heavy is thy heart,
still sink thy spirits down?
Cast off the weight, let fear depart,
and ev'ry care be gone.
What though thou rulest not,
yet heav'n and earth and hell
proclaim, God sitteth on the throne,
and ruleth all things well.
Let us in life, in death,
Thy steadfast truth declare,
and publish with our latest breath
Thy love and guardian care. ~ Paul Gerhardt, translated by John Wesley
