September 1 2023

How I move through the threshold of summer to autumn will be connected to how I move through the threshold of marriage to divorce. How I transition from renter to homeowner or homeowner to renter will correlate to how I move through my boys’ leaving our home when they are 18 or so. Insert any transition here — new job, starting school, friends moving away, death of a brother. It’s all connected. Like Richard Rohr says: how we do anything is how we do everything.

These transitions all have their own magnitudes — some are like a single creek that gently splits off into two, and others are a lightning strike that induces a forest fire, scorching the land.

If I can weep and say thank you at the splitting creeks, maybe I can do the same at the forest fires. If I am not conscious of the creeks, or if I ignore them, then the devastation of fires will overwhelm me, and I will run to whatever numbs. I am well acquainted with each.

The weeping and thank yous will look different at each threshold. The point isn’t to make the difficult transitions easy by engaging the gentler transitions well; the point is living, period. Life to the fullest, as it was said. I want to be in all of it. I practice that now, and when I come to a time where I very much don’t want to be in it, I’ll have reminders to stay and to trust.

If I numb now I’ll numb later. If I ignore now, I’ll ignore later. Force, force. Begrudge, begrudge. Welcome, welcome.

The movement from summer to fall is an invitation for me to mark a gentle threshold. Thank God for the soft ones.

Thank you, light. Welcome, darkness. What will you have for me, and what will I have for you?