The Gap

In a society that values goal-oriented, time-managed living, one of the most fearsome circumstances to find ourselves in is The Place Between—between projects, between assignments, between jobs. A professor once mentioned to me that, soon after students receive their research assignments, they experience the stage of “milling about,” an aimless, listless time before the “Aha!” light bulb ignites to lift imagination out of the doldrums. Without the energy of discovery propelling us forward, The Place Between, the place of The Gap—that undefined element—can risk morphing into the mind’s bottomless pit.

While our natural tendency is to shun gaps, face it: gaps are where the action really happens. On the surface, The Place Between may suggest a listless existence, but under the placid surface, multiple possibilities are churning, strands of thought flying off in every direction.

A gap can be the space between two points where energy flows from the negatively-charged bottom of the clouds to the positively-charged segment of earth about to receive a brilliant lightning strike. It mimics that miniscule cleft between two communicating links in the nervous system that provides our bodies the ability to function in miraculous ways. In short, The Gap becomes the frontier between what we’re leaving behind and the possibilities we hope to achieve. That frontier is where the action whips up.

How scary can that be?

A gap can be an icon of connectivity…or at least the potential of relationship. The uncertainty really becomes what we make of it. And it’s driven by what we understand of the Point we’ve left behind, and what we perceive of the Point we hope to find.

In one of the most poignant visual representations of the crucial aspect of The Gap, Michelangelo encapsulated the whole of the relationship potential between God and Man in one simple gesture. In the artist’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco, “Creation of Adam,” the now-famous space between the finger of Adam and the finger of God holds the captivating potential of mystery. Why aren’t the fingers touching? What is going on in the in-between place?

Connectivity sometimes puzzles me. Two people can have a relationship—can even be in the same room—yet be in completely different worlds. We can reach out and touch somebody, but did we really connect? What allows the connection to take hold?

The other day, Chris and I went to the hospital to visit a fellow homeschooling mom who suddenly and seriously found herself engulfed with cancer. She looked so different, so small, lying on the bed in her darkened room, undergoing chemo as we spoke. The pain of nights without sleep showed in the deep blues encircling her eyes. We came there, theoretically, to pray for her and encourage her. But can any of those mere words uttered make the connection that matters? She was in a bed not two steps away from me, but even if I reached to take her hand, could I really bridge The Gap? The Point A vignettes I knew her in for so many years now gave way to a gap between the Nice-Life known and an unknown Point B. How does one really speak to Point B when one hasn’t yet negotiated The Gap?

Crossing The Gap means making a difference. The Gap is outlined by Point A, sometimes also by Point B—but we can never, really, actually define The Gap as we move into it. We can point it out, demonstrate it, feel real feelings as we cross it, but we can’t explain the frontier. If we could, it would stop being a frontier. We would then have made the difference, have converted the potential into the knowable. Until it is known, it is fearsome. It represents a crisis, yet, it becomes our challenge.

What to make of The Gap?

Getting to Go: The Three Year Challenge, Minus One

Starting another homeschooling year (junior year of high school this time) brought to mind our challenge last August: to discern our student’s purpose in life. In the past year’s process, however, we hit a snag: how can the student discover Life Purpose when the teachers still haven’t? I’m old enough to be a grandmother now, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up! We may be the leaders, going around the game board of education once again, but we haven’t seemed to pass “Go” yet, ourselves.

For those who’ve been around since PC was a new thing (personal computers, not “politically correct”), you probably remember the advice to pick the software before purchasing the hardware; launching a student from high school calls for application of the same advice. The traditional route everyone has been programmed to follow, borrowed from public schools, demands that college should be the next step after high school. Students should be cashing in their game chips for great college recruitment hits long before the college application season starts in earnest in the junior year. Last August, it occurred to us that 2007 was the year to get busy. It would be only three years until graduation.

On first impulse, it seemed the natural start was to choose which college to attend. Like buying the proverbial computer, though, that decision required some additional input—like, “What is the purpose of attending college?” And, “What do I want to accomplish by receiving further education?” In other words, what “software” would guide us through this task best? Which hardware (college or other option) would then best run the software we selected?

That’s where the process broke down….

It seems there is a world of space between Now and Getting To Go.

Most of it has to do with examining weighty things like Life Purpose. How to decide that in 3 Easy Steps? Or even 48 Days? These are questions that the “normal” school doesn’t put on their exit exams.

So, last August, in a family conference, our challenge was for Claire (then the lucky sophomore) to pursue the quest to find her Life Purpose in three simple years or less.

And then, the thought hit us: in three years, Chris would be eligible for early retirement. And because of Claire’s graduation, in three years, I would be facing a whole new world of possibilities, too. Then what?

Last August, the challenge became: take these three years to explore what God has for each of us, as individuals and as a family, for future service—whether work or ministry. And the inevitable result was, one year out, we realized that—like so many software programs hawking the same benefits to the unsuspecting, naïve customer—future possibilities can be overwhelming. A lot of thinking has mired us in Analysis Paralysis. The time gap is now two years and counting. The task gap is still three years. Welcome to Phase Two of the Process: thinking (blogging) out loud as we explore the possibilities.