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Article: Grieving as sacred space: how these anxious and ambiguous days might offer up the most holy of gifts. (soul searching).(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- Sojourners Magazine
- Article date:
- January 1, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Sojourners. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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"They sat there on the ground beside him for seven days and seven nights. To Job they never spoke a word, so sad a sight he made."
--Job 2:13
In recent studies of initiation rites, which seem to have been strategic for human survival in most of human history, I have discovered from Victor Turner the concept of "liminal space." He says that it is very hard to come by in the modern and now post-modern world. We are now too strategic, functional, and hurried to easily seek what the ancients sought above all else. Only pain is now strong enough to lead us into this unique place "where all significant transformation happens."
I suspect America is ...