The Space Between Places

The space between places is a most unusual experience. You are neither here nor there. You are in one sense nonexistent. Stripped bare of all personal distinction, peasant and king alike stand side by side in the same helpless dependency. Waiting. Waiting for the doors of the subway to open. Waiting for the stoplight to turn green. Waiting for the plane to land, for the train to reach the station.


Place determines so much of our actuality. It provides the backdrop before which we live and act out our desires. It becomes the playground, the environment where we become that which we think ourselves to be. Place is where we have our being. It creates the possibilities. It sets the boundaries. It draws the context in which we function. It defines those who occupy it.


The space between places is a respecter of no person. It levels all who pass through its corridor to the same playing field. All share in the same nakedness of individual distinction. Stripped bare of status and prominence, it humbles the rich and liberates the poor. It equalizes all to a raw humanity. The space between places baptizes us through its own rite of passage. We are cleansed from the past and born anew to the next set of circumstances. Dependent as babies, we become helpless transients waiting for a place to call home.


A person without a place is like a flower without soil or a fish without water. Those who have no continuing city are considered ghosts or phantoms. They lose a particular sense of substance required to participate in life. Aimless wandering is considered a curse. Those without a sense of belonging are doomed to perpetual restlessness. They ride the bus but never get off. They set up camp on the medians. They take the elevator but have no room at the hotel. They bear the mark of Cain.


Those who learn to harness the power of the moment begin to live life at its fullest capacity. Not wavering to the past or leaning too forwardly into the future, they overcome the awkwardness of the space between. They learn to rest.


There’s a bubble in the carpenter’s level, which floats between two vertical lines. When a surface is level, the bubble rests in perfect balance. The space between places becomes a defining moment setting life on accurate horizontal and vertical lines. The space between becomes Sabbath. The space tests the plumb lines of our hearts. It tests the accuracy of The Cross in our lives and helps make the correct adjustments to give rest and peace. This carpenter’s level is originally called a “spirit level”. When we come to this place of balance in the space between, we rise to the Spirit level. The Space Between two worlds.

Comments

  1. "The space between places baptizes us through its own rite of passage. "
    I like this though very much... been thinking about various decisions and possibilities and it seems to overwhelm me when I try to pin the future down according to how I would like to envision it.... Space for me has been the place where I ought to be resting rather than stressing... I have wandered too long, and been down to many a road to want to see more wandering.... I am looking for my soil.... and I am willing to cross over to where I have never been before to find it....perhaps it's under my nose, and I haven't noticed it yet!

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