Hello all, 

One of the joys of my role is visiting schools and seeing young people develop. I have the privilege to visit, on a regular basis, four primary schools in the area and it is lovely to see the fun and excitement on the children's faces when I'm leading an assembly or when listening to what they have learned and have been up to. 

As we grow, we face change: change in ourselves and changes in the world around us. Our understanding develops, our bodies change (more aches and pains in my case!), our friends move away, and new ones fill the gap that is left. But however used to change we become, there is often a resistance to or indeed an anxiety about what the change will bring. 

School has change built into the system, when each year you move up a class or indeed schools at certain times, and this can be worrying for young people. I remember how worried I was! The six-week holiday before starting at junior school or high school seems a long time to worry about the new year! But this gap between the old and the new is present in every change, it is called "liminal" space or time: a threshold which needs to be crossed, where old doors are closed before a new door is opened. Liminal spaces can be uncomfortable places to be, where our place in the world in undefined and fluid, where choices are made with no definite knowledge of the outcome and we can feel "adrift" or in "limbo". 

The reassurance is, the more times you go through liminality, the more you become used to it and even excited about the change to come. 

The Christian narrative is littered with stories of liminality from the Children of Israeal "wandering" in the desert for 40 years to the death and resurrection of Jesus. I know that not everyone who reads this will have faith or trust in God, but knowledge from experience I have tells me that change is invariably good and that liminal spaces are not to be feared but to be embraced. I also believe that God is a God who redeems all things, even our anxieties. 

Many of our children will be "moving up" or "moving on" this summer. We can really help our young people by understanding how difficult this time can be and just being there for them. Please join me in praying that this six weeks of summer holidays will be a time of refreshment and excitement for what is to come and that any joy and peace will outweigh any fear or resistance.

Every blessing, 
Rev Andy