The Time “In Between”

Have you ever experienced a time “in between”?  “In between” time is usually a time of waiting for something to happen, like the few months in between high school graduation and the first year of college.   It feels like empty time, a kind of neutral zone, in which nothing productive is taking place.   These times “in between” have waiting rooms of all kinds, depending on what it is we seem to be waiting for.  Carl Jung suggested that this “in between” time is often where a person goes when there is a decision to be made, the possibility of a life-changing commitment, a goal to be determined, or an important work to be accomplished, etc.   Often we enter the time “in between” not really knowing what is going on with us.  We go on doing the necessary things that have to be done, meeting our obligations and so forth, but in the midst of it all we feel that we are not quite with it.  We are waiting for some unknown—waiting for something to happen.  We feel caught and held in bondage in the time “in between.”

I call this time “in between” a “Holy Saturday.” It is a time of being in the dark,  like being inside a tomb, a time of waiting and hoping for some kind of resurrection—some happening, some decision, some answer to a pressing question or issue, some goal, some work, some light and life to break forth in a new way.

Waiting is not an easy thing for human beings.  But the time “in between” can’t be rushed or forced.  There are no clocks or calendars telling us when “resurrection” or a “eureka moment” is going to happen.  No infant in the womb has ever had a map that indicated “this way out.”  No seed in the soil has a sign that says, “this way up.”  No butterfly developing in the chrysalis has a schedule and a time table posted nearby. The time “in between” is a waiting that will end only when the time is right!  We must learn to trust the time “in between” when it comes.

And it does come to all of us.  It is more than a mood, more than a kind of depression or an anxiety.  It may be “that of God in us” calling for a response.  It may be the birth of a new idea, a new goal for our life.  The time “in between” is a Holy Saturday, and when it comes we can know that an “Eastering” awaits.

Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ