From - Through - To : Liminality in the Christian Cultus



"Pilgrims On The Way"  are in a state of Liminality, 


                        The time and miles of a pilgrimage, however long or short, are a threshold.
The pilgrim travels  
                        From     A  
                       
                       Through     a landscape and a time apart from the work-s-day world  - 
                        
                       To             B.  

 The time and the miles of a pilgrimage provide an opportunity to reflect and reach a new understanding. This is why pilgrimages are often given as a penance.  They allow for amendment of life!

All Christian Life is Pilgrimage

                                 From         in  the waters of baptism we embark on a new life.
                         
                      Through    the path of life, following Jesus who is "the Way, the Truth and the Life.  "Here we have no abiding city, but we look for one that is to come. ( Hebrews 13.14).

                                 To              the life of the world to come

 It follows that the pilgrimages we undertake during the course of our  lives are sacramental. They are outward and visible signs of the inner and spiritual truth that Christians are a pilgrim people.

From birth  - Though life - To death 
and the promise is to something more besides.

We live in a time of change

 The traditional Church of England, in its chocolate box setting, with a vicar on a bike, in the midst of a village complete with thatched cottages and a pub, seems to have been there forever. 

This is the A             From which we are moving 

                                 Through   a time of rapid change, in the course of which the Church has been pushed to the margins of society, still wheeled in for church weddings and funerals or state occasions, with falling membership and short of human resources (lay and ordained);  spread thin and thinner as time progresses.  

Multiple disrupters   - education, ease of travel, new developments in work patterns, the digital word etc -  disrupt! 
The tectonic plates are moving and in the earthquakes that follows are bound to bring some structures down.

                               To?     What exactly?  The question remains to be answered, 

 Might we imagine a smaller, and, perhaps ,more dynamic Church that has developed an on-line presence and maintains a smaller number of buildings?

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