Liminal Journey

On airports, thresholds, and the holiness of the in-between

Airports are odd places. They don’t conform to your normal daily routine. You’re in a liminal space — a place that feels both timeless and transitional. Nothing matters except the gate departure time. You’re not where you were, and you’re not yet where you’re going.

Waiting space. Shadowed space. The in-between.

I sit in layover. I ate dinner at 1 a.m. on the red-eye from Atlanta to Lima. Around me, people drift — coming and going in singles and family groups. Language lines are blurred. No one cares where you started; now you’re part of the shifting tribes that wait in line, follow unfamiliar signs to gates unknown, and flash passports a dozen times.

Is it lunchtime? Who knows. Eat when you want.

A Korean family sits next to me for a while. Their shared language is incomprehensible to me, but their shared laughter connects us. I nap. The lines blur again as a husband and wife argue (a bit too loudly) in Spanish next to me. I’m learning a few new words.

For me, this liminal space represents a threshold — a passage to something new. I’m on my way to a four-week sabbatical in Cusco. I’m one airport away from the high altitude of the Andes. One airport away from language school, cultural immersion, and inevitable mistakes. A journey of learning. A journey of self-discovery.

I left Mississippi on Sunday. I’ll arrive in Cusco on Monday. But everything in between blurs like wet ink. The journey has begun, but the destination hasn’t yet arrived. I’m moving, but not arriving. Waiting in motion.

In anthropology, a liminal space is the threshold phase in a rite of passage — the moment when a person is no longer who they were, but not yet who they will become. The middle ground between identity and transformation.

The awkward part.
The holy part.

And there is something holy about sabbatical. (Does that word come from Sabbath — the day of rest?) I’ve stepped out of a season of overfull calendars, staff meetings, and countless rehearsals. I’ve left the comfort of roles I know well — musician, pastor, teacher, conductor — to become, for a little while, a student again. A stranger. A beginner.

Another liminal space in the Christian tradition is the wilderness. Forty days for Jesus. Forty years for Israel. These aren’t vacations. They’re not even respites from normal life. They are crucibles where transformation can happen — sometimes in big ways, sometimes in quiet, unnoticed ones. But it’s in the waiting and the wandering that something new is born.

So I’m paying attention, even in the layovers.
I’m eager to get to Cusco, but there’s something sacred in watching and listening.

It’s amazing how many people will have loud, private conversations on their cell phones in very public places. Half the story is all I get — and it’s often the most dramatic half. What a strange, human symphony.

Maybe the layover isn’t just a place to wait. Maybe it’s a place to learn to wait. A place to listen. A place to let go.

I’m not in control here. The airlines are steering my path today. But maybe that’s part of the invitation. Maybe the sacred isn’t only found in Cusco’s ancient walls or the ruins of Machu Picchu.

Maybe it’s found right here — in the threshold.
In the waiting room.
In the layover.