Liminality is the state of not knowing how or if a situation will resolve itself. It’s a rite of passage. If wise elders have not prepared us for this rebirth experience and taught us the necessity of relaxing into it, we will almost certainly resist it. Once a pattern of resistance has become established, our embryonic potential for love is lost. We become weirdly animated fossils, waiting for a death that has already happened.
As every resurrection requires a corpse, the birth of a new man requires the death of an old one. Who is the new man? He has no fear. Not even a shred remains.
My sense of the pandemic is that it’s hastening a shift in the collective consciousness. As those who have emerged from addiction have realized, the good news is first of all bad news.
Comfort and security do not change a man. Only adversity can do that. We are hallowed and habilitated in difficult times.
It is impossible to fail on purpose. The man who does this has, after all, succeeded. Failure is the Paschal mystery. It’s where the new me is forged.
Men's Work 