Threshold

Such a simple thing. All of us have one at the door to homes. It's a threshold. It's something none of us takes any notice of until something goes wrong with it. Actually a lot of our lives are marked by that – even our bodies. We are unaware of so much until it goes wrong. Lots of different kinds of folks, going way back in time, have recommended that we cultivate an awareness of those things around us that we take for granted. For some time it has seemed to me that Jesus' message about the Kingdom of God was at least partly aimed at getting us to recognize that God's territory was all around us, if only we'd pay attention and recognize it.

Definition: Threshold

1. The plank, stone, or piece of timber, which lies under a door, especially of a dwelling house, church, temple, or the like; the doorsill; hence, entrance; gate; door.
2. Fig.: The place or point of entering or beginning, entrance; outset; as, the threshold of life.

Definition: Thresh v., threshed, thresh·ing, thresh·es. v.tr.

1. To beat the stems and husks of (grain or cereal plants) with a machine or flail to separate the grains or seeds from the straw.
2. To separate (grains or seeds) in this manner.
3. To discuss or examine (an issue, for example) repeatedly.
4. To beat severely; thrash.

It took a poet to point out that these two words are related. I don't think of the threshold to my home as a place where I will get "thrashed" – though clearly "home" is that for some – too many – people. Or maybe the association is the other way around. As we leave the peace and calm of our homes, crossing the threshold, we go out to get "thrashed" in the big wide world out there. Again, that has not generally been my experience, though I recognize that it is for some people.

The poet John O'Donohue uses the image of "threshold" to point to a line of demarcation, a dividing line, a limit, that points to the intersection of the spiritual and the material. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how he uses the image of the ocean shore in a similar way. It is the place where heaven and earth meet and cross paths. Bishop N.T. Wright has used imagery like that in the video series we have just completed on Wednesday mornings.

God's kingdom, the place where God's in charge, is right here. But we most of the time don't pay attention to that fact. Often it is only when things go wrong or don't work. But our paying attention to it – or not – doesn't have any impact on God's being in charge. It's really up to us to become aware of that "threshold" that separates, but also helps us to see, heaven on earth.

And the fact that thresholds are verbally related to the verbs for "threshing" and "thrashing" helps us to recognize that often it is only when we have had the things we take for granted stripped away that we realize what really matters, what really lasts. It often takes a certain "thrashing" before we "get it." "Putting things right", as Bp. Wright puts it, involves putting things in order, justifying things. And that means getting them in the order that God sees. It can be painful. But the end, the goal, is to cross the threshold of our lives into a wide and beautiful landscape – another of O'Donohue's metaphors – where God reigns.