When it comes to thinking about spirituality and social action I find myself drawn to a pair of maps that seem to point to the same single, most powerful step toward growth.

Stages of Faith

When I was in seminary, I was introduced to Dr. James Fowler’s theories of the Stages of Faith (1981). His thinking is based on psychological development models (Piaget, Kohlberg, and Erikson in particular) that suggest people’s experience of faith grows through a stepping-stone process. Fowler argues that people can move through up to 6 stages of faith and suggests that most of us spend our lives in stages 3-5 with some remaining in stage 2 and very few moving into stage 6. The stages are:

1. Intuitive-Projective – primarily experienced by preschool children where ideas of God or faith are gleaned from those around them, and fantasy and reality often get muddled together
2. Mythic-Literal – typically in elementary school children begin to understand the world more logically, but also tend to believe stories of faith in very literal ways
3. Synthetic-Conventional – often exhibited as teens, growing social circles prompt a longing for a bounded belief system with established authorities. Young people can experience a difficulty of seeing beyond one’s insider perspective.
4. Individuative-Reflective – young adults begin to recognize the faith “boxes” they have put themselves in, begin to critically examine them, discover other traditions, and can become disillusioned with their former faith. (Fowler notes interestingly, that those in stage 3 often criticize those in stage 4 as “backsliders” when they are really moving forward in their faith development)
5. Conjunctive Faith – during mid-life some people begin to embrace the paradoxes of life and return to sacred stories without getting stuck in their former insider theological boxes
6. Universalizing Faith – rarely, people grow to live their lives with few worries or doubts and with a deep commitment to love and justice toward others

I have mixed feelings about Fowler’s Stages of Faith map. On the one hand it is really nice to have a sense of a roadmap for faith. It allows us to acknowledge that faith and belief systems change and provides some direction in how we might be growing. On the other hand, these stages imply some clearly definable steps that all people move through in a linear process. Perhaps most seductively, stages imply a ranking that tempts us to compare ourselves to others using a little mental game of “So…where are you in your stage of faith? I’m pretty sure I just passed into the Conjunctive Phase” (Oh, what…would you like a little certificate for that?!)

Criticisms aside, one of the really valuable aspects of this model is how it highlights several transformational shifts of faith. There are things that happen through our faith experience that help move us from one place to another. Faith is not a thing that we “find” and “hold onto,” it is a dynamic lived experience that changes in response to the people and world around us. Hold that thought for a minute…we’ll come back to it in a bit.

The Active Citizen Continuum

During a Social Justice class I teach, we study how social movements work and how people become involved in them. There are lots of reasons that people do and do not get involved in social change campaigns. One of the more interesting maps I encountered as part of this class is the Active Citizen Continuum that proposes four stages of movement from less to more engagement in democracy and civic affairs:

1. Member – someone who is part of a society, going about their daily business, but not really concerned about their role in social problems
2. Volunteer – someone who is well intentioned and willing to help, but not educated about or very concerned with larger social issues
3. Conscientious Citizen – someone who is beginning to ask the deeper questions. For instance, they move from asking “how can we take care of these hungry people?” to asking “why are all of these people hungry in the first place?!”
4. Active Citizen – someone for whom community engagement becomes an essential part of their values and life choices. Contributing to community becomes part of what they do as part of their identity and work.

Once again, this model has its advantages and disadvantages. Like Fowler’s Stages, it implies discrete steps that move in a linear direction. The problem of course, is that not everyone moves from one clear step to another. Also, the implication that being an Active Citizen is better than being a volunteer overlooks the vital role played by those who give many hours of service to care for others in our community.

However, there are two aspects of this model that are really important. First is that it is crucial to differentiate between these different ways of connecting with civic life. While Volunteering is important, the shift to Conscientious and Active Citizen is what sets the stage for significant social change. Had all of society been satisfied with being Volunteers, child-labor laws would have never been enacted. We might have lots of people helping to take care of kids, but instead of going to school, 8 year-olds would still be working in coal mines and shucking oysters. Second, there are experiences that we have in their lives that move us from one stage to the next. People are not destined to remain in one stage of the Active Citizen Continuum. We Make choices that move us across these various positions.

So what?

Why is it helpful to think about stages of faith and civic engagement? Although these two maps attempt to capture two very different life experiences (spirituality and civic engagement) I was struck by one essential similarity. 

Which finally gets us to this “Most Powerful Step” – the necessity of reaching beyond our boxes and outside of our circles. Notice how connecting with those who are different from us is the linchpin in both sets of stages? Expanding our circles is what challenges us to grow beyond our inherited and siloed faith perspectives and draws us into the hard work of claiming our own authentic faith perspectives. This simply cannot happen without encountering people from diverse backgrounds.

Likewise, connecting with people outside of our traditional circles is what moves us through the stages of the Active Citizenship Continuum. It nudges us from volunteering to a deeper commitment to make real change in the world. When we connect with others beyond our established circles, we begin to genuinely care about their struggles, and find it hard to ignore the call to join those working to make the world a better place. 

Both of these maps illuminate the same essential step – reaching out is essential for growth. Learning about other’s joy, struggle, wisdom, pain and courage is the key step that draws us beyond our faith silos and fears of civic engagement.

Now What?

Okay..so now what do we do? “Reaching out” sounds simple, but if we’re not accustomed to doing it, it can be hard to know where to begin. Here are 5 possible steps in the journey to changing the world and liberating ourselves: 

Take the other to lunch – I have mentioned Elizabeth Lesser’s TED talk in a previous posting, but it’s just too good to not mention again. Lesser includes a list of “rules” and some example questions you can use to initiate a conversation with someone that may be very different from you. I have adapted this exercise for the Conflict Training class I teach. If you would like the exercise, questions, and worksheet I use in class, let me know. I’m happy to share.

Conduct some Informational Interviews – Those in the job hunting mode will recognize Informational Interviews as the work of identifying people who are doing jobs you are interested in, and then reaching out to them to find out about their field, what a day-in-the-life of this career looks like, etc., etc. Adapting this job hunting strategy to reaching out, there are a whole variety of ways you could use this to push beyond your daily world:

1. You could conduct interviews with justice leaders, community members, or the local mayor. 
2. You could reach out to former HS or college classmates to find out about their experience or sense of the campus’ perspective toward people of different races or gender orientations in your school.
3. You could interview grandparents to learn about their experience of faith or justice from generations back. 
4. You could set up a round-robin office interview project to learn about those you work with but have never taken the time to get to know.

I have done these sorts of interview projects with students over the years and have lists of questions I’d be happy to share. Again, just let me know.

Go on a cross-cultural experience – My most transformative experiences have come as part of cross-cultural adventures. My students consistently report that traveling to different communities, cities, regions, or countries and having genuine opportunities to talk with people there is one of their most powerful university experiences. Check out Friendship Force International as a great example of these sorts of opportunities. 

Connect friendship building to your travel – For those who regularly travel as part of vacation or business, consider integrating some richer get-to-know-you efforts into your plans. This could range from visiting a museum to seeking out activities that connect you with those who live in the place you are visiting. I remember how powerful it was to stay with Japanese families when visiting Nagasaki or Israeli and Palestinian families when we traveled to Israel and the West Bank. Check out this article for some additional ideas.

Other Options for Meeting New People – Although people are doing a lot less traveling right now…don’t let that stand in your way. First, you could always read authors from around the world. I find Powell’s “25 Books You Must Read Before You Die” lists are always a good place to start. Additionally, you could hop online and check out a whole set of options for meeting people around the world. As always, you need to be discerning when reaching out to people online. However, there are a variety of apps and websites that facilitate what could become some great connections. Finally, this might be a great time to pick up another language. Look around in your community for native speakers or reach out to your local college or university language department for classes or suggestions. Use this as an opportunity to build your connection with new people and places.

I hope in the months ahead you try out some of these uncomfortably powerful challenges and growing in surprising ways.

rainonrocks.com explores the connection between spirituality and social justice and inspires readers to reach deep and get involved. Matt blogs about spiritual meanderings, social action, and courageous voices who think creating a better world is worth the effort. Contact Matt about speaking or workshop opportunities. See the Services section for more information. Subscribe, share with your friends, and suggest topics or people you’d like to get to know.

What is Liminality?

First, some fun etymology (BTW “fun” and “etymology”…two words that have probably never appeared in the same sentence ever). Liminal comes from the Latin word “Limins” – a passageway between two spaces. The limins is a threshold, that part of the door found on the floor where one steps from one room into another. It was most likely the dividing point between the room where a household threshed grain and the next-door room. Of course metaphorically a “threshold” is a moment of transition from one thing or time to another. In anthropology, the idea of liminality reveals unique moments of human life and community. Arnold van Gennep (Le Rites de Passage. 1909) developed this concept in connection to his writing about momentous changes in our lives. You know, all the rituals that mark high school graduation, adulthood, marriage, death and others. My post-high-school pre-college flight was a liminal time.

But not all liminal moments are connected with developmental Rites of Passage and one can begin to see how it also might explain lots of other transformations that occur around us all the time. Victor Turner (Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society, 1974) extended Van Gennep’s concepts to cultural and political change by noting how liminal periods can exist in all sorts of times and places. One can be elected President of the United States but need to wait several liminal months before taking the oath of office. Traveling by train or plane can become liminal times as one is neither here nor there but somewhere in between. 

Writers have applied liminal concepts to all sorts of experiences. From the novelist’s struggle with the middle portion of a book where a plot point has been instigated but the protagonist has yet to respond, to the personal journey through a period of grief and uncertainty accompanying the death of a spouse. Despite some arguing that rites of passage have become particularly scarce in post-industrial Western society, liminality and this time of in-betweenness can become a powerful way to think about many moments of our lives. 

So what happens during liminal days?

Some liminal moments are deeply personal and shake us to our very foundation (like getting married or the death of a spouse), others are significant but might be limited to a set period of time or not push quite as deeply into our lives (waiting to hear back from a job interview or moving from one apartment to another), and yet others might barely register above our daily routines (driving to work or waiting to get the WiFi hooked up at home). During the more intense manifestations, Liminality is characterized by a sense that:

• Our assumed future plans have suddenly been thrown into doubt (like when we lose our job and wonder what is going to happen next)
• The normal authorities in our lives don’t hold the same power over us that they used to (like the way we look differently at our kindergarten teacher once we move-on)
• Traditions and established orders become fluid and malleable (say when we leave home and suddenly discover we can drink as much Mountain Dew as we want without our parents getting on us about it!)
• Our identity is shifting both for ourselves and others (as in when we wear a wedding band in public thereby witnessing to new rules regarding our relationships)

These personal and social shifts can set off a whole series of quakes up and down the fault-lines of our lives. Some are anticipated and full of joy (graduation) while others can be impossible to predict and leave us broken and lost (the death of a loved one). Often, even “positive” liminal moments can create unclarity about plans for our lives, confusion about our values and priorities, a jostling of our relationships with old friends, and create a sense that we’ve lost control.

These times are often uncomfortable and scary. Turner observed that liminal moments are extremely intense and the lack of routine, disappearance of expectations, and shifting relationships typically cannot be sustained for long. These unique times can push people into new identities and relationships with those around them and often become the compost out of which new growth, commitments, identities, relationships, and institutions are born.

This paradox is not lost on spiritual leaders. Think of the Hebrew people’s 40 years of wandering in the desert, the Buddah’s 49 days under the bodhi tree, Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness, and the time spent in the jungle by young male Bassari tribe initiates as part of their rite of passage to adulthood. Uncomfortable and unpredictable spaces are frequently understood as essential for growth. Terrifying or uncomfortable as it may be, recognizing that we are moving through liminal moments gives us some control during what seem like uncontrollable times, and make good use of these waves of change. “Thinking liminally” allows us to more thoughtfully move through life as people wanting to bring a bit more hope into the world.

How do you know you’ve entered a liminal space? 

A good place to begin is to watch for endings and beginnings. Liminal times often come upon us through changes in personal relationships, work, careers, family, geography, even cultural and political moments (think about how WWII or the coronavirus has thrown the whole planet into an in-between space!). All of these mark significant shifts. A move across the country to follow a partner’s work. Graduation from college and the move into a career. Watch too for the stuff that previously made sense to you, but doesn’t anymore. Work that felt like a good fit, suddenly doesn’t feel like a good fit. Hobbies don’t satisfy the way they used to. Rhythms that used to feel normal, don’t feel normal anymore.

Liminality and Personal Transformation

How do we make our way through liminal times? Though different people do this in different ways, the following 5 suggestions are a good place to begin…

1. Recognize that something different is going on and that you’re not going crazy – liminal moments, when things seem to be swirling out of place around or inside – are not only not wrong, but it might be exactly what needs to be happening to you or to our world right now. What new things could be coming to life under the surface of what might seem like total chaos?
2. Gear down – Some years (decades!?) ago I cycled with a group from Flagstaff, Arizona to Yellowstone Park in Wyoming. Cutting back and forth across the continental divide meant lots of hills. Contrary to my instincts, far more seasoned teammates would shout back “time to spin!” In cycling parlance this meant that we should drop into a low gear and peddle more quickly but with much less pressure. Sure we were only creeping along, but now was the time to steward our muscles, not break speed records. If we wanted to move forward, go slow.
3. Check with others. This is a perfect moment to check-in with those you are close to and see if they are seeing what you are seeing. When life seems like it’s running off the tracks, you’re usually not in the best position to understand what is going on. Some outside perspective lets you confirm what’s really up. For a more intentional focus, this might be a great time to begin meeting with a therapist.
4. Return to old loves – Reinvest in some old playfulness or hobbies. James Hollis (The Middle Passage, 1994) tells the story of how renowned psychologist Carl Jung would build sandcastles and play with toys on the beach as he moved through his midlife transitions. This comforting playfulness creates space inside for us to non-anxiously explore this new time.
5. Discern rather than Demand – Suspecting that something new is coming to life in or around us, it is tempting to quickly turn toward action (remember how Turner talked about how hard it is to remain in liminal moments?). My own experience with this has come through imagining myself approaching a wall and feeling an overwhelming urge to hammer a passage through it. As the years have gone on, I’ve worked to reimagine reaching this wall and gently feeling for the edges of a hidden door I have overlooked in my panicked zeal. Sometimes expecting that the next step is already present reveals surprises we would not have otherwise seen.

Liminality, Social Justice & Society

Most conversations about Rites of Passage and liminality stop here. They focus on individual transformation that comes when someone becomes part of a faith community or graduates from school. I think we often forget the necessary social component from which liminal opportunities grow. This additional perspective allows us to understand the social power of what is typically relegated to an exclusively personal experience. Here is the liminal intersection where spirituality and social justice meet.

The social power of liminal transformation is evident in two ways. First, notice that personal transformation is only possible in the midst of community. Without a community, there is no temple to become part of. Without an educational system, graduation makes no sense. Absent some social body, cultural community, neighborhood, village, or nation, rituals of transformation are meaningless. Second, transformative growth is affirmed only with a greater degree of responsibility toward the community. Rituals acknowledging the crossing of a child into young-adulthood is necessarily accompanied by the community-driven expectation of greater maturity and responsibility. Without new challenges and roles, a person may grow older in years, but remain stuck in a former, less-mature identity.

Donning my sociologist hat, I wonder how liminal moments might draw us more deeply into civic engagement and social justice. Rather than limiting liminal moments to personal spiritual growth, the challenge to engage social justice offers deeper transformation. What might this look like?…here are 5 more hints:

1. Remember that liminal moments are more than just personal spiritual awakenings. Liminal transformations are incomplete without new ways of relating to our community. If you feel a lingering sense of unfinished liminal business, perhaps it is the need to re-engage with your neighbors or social life in new ways? 
2. Recognize when others are going through uncomfortable, liminal times. If someone close to you seems to be out of sorts, or shares a challenging struggle, consider that it might not just be a “problem” to solve, but an opportunity for growth and transformation that you can help them explore. At the very least, don’t just brush them off as having a bad day. This is your opportunity to walk with another through a powerful time.
3. Identify – one of most empowering and powerful forces for social change is to simply say who you are and the causes you believe in. Yard signs, bumper stickers, tweets, shares, or wearing a pin on your jacket might not feel like a way to change the world, but can require great courage (only available to those who are growing in confidence and care). Remember too that these small actions speak powerfully to others who might also want to identify themselves, but fear being the only one.
4. Take “the other” to lunch – This one is inspired by Elizabeth Lesser who has a great TED talk that challenges us to engage in conversations with those at the periphery of our world (https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_lesser_take_the_other_to_lunch?language=en#t-10856). While Lesser focuses primarily on those who are in a different political place than we are, one can extend this to people in our office who we have never talked with, neighbors who we wave at but haven’t really met, and acquaintances of different racial or ethnic backgrounds. Entering the conversation with a few ground-rules and the intention of listening and learning rather than educating or converting is vital. You will probably be amazed at the power of these conversations.
5. Follow your skills, not your shoulds, which is to say, don’t necessarily yield to the pressure of what you think you should be doing. For example, amidst a #MeToo rally, I was talking with a very introverted friend who hates crowds but is very passionate about the movement. Rather than caving to the sense that they should be out on the street, my friend spent days tweeting, sharing, and communicating plans for the march with their friends and classmates. Following their skills (online social media communication) was much more joyful for my friend and valuable for the movement than a sense that the only way to participate was to be out on the street marching.

This investment in our liminal experiences is particularly important in this time of climate change, the coronavirus, the global call for police reform, and a renewed focus on racial justice. A rich understanding of transformative liminal experiences reveals that we may be experiencing a powerful powerful moment of social change. It also reminds us that spiritual transformation is incomplete without social engagement. Today’s transformative turmoil becomes both a good time to seek solace for your soul AND become part of building a better new world. 

When you sense change coming, don’t just relegate it to a change in your meditation routine. Yes, meditate, journal, walk, and make dedicated use of the spiritual tools you find helpful. And…allow these transformations to percolate into relationships with friends, family and strangers around you. 

rainonrocks.com explores the connection between spirituality and social justice and inspires readers to reach deep and get involved. Matt Friesen blogs about spiritual meanderings, career confusion, and wandering voices who think it’s worth trying to make a difference. Subscribe, share with your friends, and suggest topics or people you’d like to get to know.