The Power of Threshold Wisdom

Description

Life plugs along, and then a phone call comes, a relationship breaks, a diagnosis lands, or the boss calls us in, and suddenly the bottom drops out of life. In this message, I want to talk about what we may find there, at the bottom, once the shock has quieted and the tears have had their say. Swedenborg gives us a startling insight: “When the demands of the outward or earthly self go to sleep, as they do during times of misfortune, distress, or sickness,” we begin to think more reverently and form better intentions. That is threshold wisdom. God does not send the pain. God doesn’t do that. Yet in His providence, God meets us inside what He never wished for us, whispering something deeper than easy optimism: God is here, too. We may dance again, as Anne Lamott reminds us, and we may “dance with a limp.” So we practice now. We guard our attention. We question the fearful stories we tell ourselves. We make room for stillness, for truth, for the quiet voice beneath the noise. And there, we begin to know what we truly know.