My uncle died recently. We’d returned from four days up in Idyllwild on a Monday afternoon and I woke up to an email sent the night before that he was failing rapidly. The phone call came at 6:45am that he’d passed.

I waited for traffic on the I-15 south to settle a bit before heading down the 30 minutes or so to the house where he’d lived for 50 years and where I’d spent so much of my young life. On the way down, I was playing a canned Spotify playlist of soft piano music and just reflecting when a piece came on entitled, “The Space in Between.” While I didn’t particularly like the selection, it gave me some moments to reflect on the title and how I identify with my own take on the phrase. I finally figured it was time to write about it.

A space in between presupposes two different places with a mediating middle. In other words, two realities with a zone attached to each. In military terms, it’s No Man’s Land or a DMZ (demilitarized zone) that keeps opposing forces separated. In spiritual terms, it’s that place that touches both the natural and the supernatural. Of course, a dogmatic naturist who denies a concept of a supernatural could not relate. But for those of us who believe in, or at least sense, there is an “Other” beyond the state and laws of nature, we have to wonder how (if ever) they intersect.

If we stop for a moment to think about it, don’t we need to confront the possibility or fact that what we’re seeing and experiencing right now is not the whole ball of wax? Of course, science fiction plays with this all of the time. Alternative realities and dimensions. Parallel universes and such. And, there is a strong element in a thing we can loosely call eastern faiths that teach that what we see and experience is mere illusion … a thing we need to break free of in order to escape this reality and merge with the Other.

In other words, with the exception of the pure naturists, there is a whole lot of pull from humans towards recognizing that what we see is not all we get, so to speak.

So, if there’s any truth in this inclination, then we need to ask what is this and what is that? And, how do they connect?

I spent a bunch of years aways back trying to conceive of a situation where this was all illusion. I still have books on my shelves that testify to that. Oh, I can play the mind games that a table is not really a hard object but merely a bunch of molecules (like me) that just happen to be moving very slowly. Similarly, in that line of thinking, the table and I aren’t all that different, except I have consciousness somehow through some cosmic feat. No disrespect to my Zen friends but tackling koans to break through the illusion of this life just didn’t do it in the end. For me, it didn’t answer a number of fundamental questions, including the problem with evil, among other things.

So, I exist in a reality that says what we see and experience is truly real and not an illusion. But, of course, there is another reality that is just as real but far more illusive in the sense it is not so readily available … even impossibly so in its purest form.

When we accept this as fact or at least as highly probable, we have a choice. We can go about living our lives with the knowledge and habits that this is this and that is that … and maybe someday (usually upon death), I can leave this and exist in that. I suspect many people live this way. Or, we can try to engage the “that,” while living in the “this,” usually by some sort of petitioning prayer during tough times or by seeking connection in nature or by meditation and so forth. And, there’s something to be said for these things. I’m a fan.

Or, we can recognize that the “that” is right here, all of the time, in the “this” and we were designed to know and live that at the core of our being.

And, this is where the intersection takes place. Two worlds layered as one. Separate but together.

Some may describe this intersection as the Space in Between. If I were to do so, I’d say it’s not a place but a state of being. I am the Space in Between. I have reflected many times these past dozen years that I have one foot planted in this place and one foot planted in that place. The challenge is how to live that way. It’s a wild ride, to be honest.

Of course, our reasoning and our feelings tug at us constantly. We search. We examine. We may eventually conclude. Then we doubt. We question. We struggle. Answers raise other questions and, frequently, our hearts are heavy. On the other hand, there are countless blessings. We delight, we rejoice, we love. We look around and marvel. At times, the world seems to dance. Our hearts, the other day heavy, now have a lightness or, maybe, an energy that on occasion the body seems unable to contain.

The skeptics, of which I was long a card-carrying member, will reasonably conclude that this is just so much babble. Biochemistry and conditioning, some will suggest.

Diane and I have small decals on the back window of our two cars. Everyone has seen such a decal, some small, some large. It has a little cross intertwined with the letters NOTW, Not of This World. The display is a paean … a sort of proclamation of the reality we ascribe to.

I am in this world but not of it. This fact was never more pronounced or blatantly obvious than when that voice came out of nowhere into the left side of my head and said, “It’s time to come home.” As I’ve said time and time again, I’d been searching for a reality that could ultimately explain all of the nuances, contradictions, explanations and feelings that had been swirling throughout my life. Ultimate explanation is not on everyone’s Top 5 list of things to consider. But, it was on mine.

“Home” of course is where God is and where he called me to be. It is where we are meant to be together. He calls me there all of the time. Sometimes I listen. When I do, and surrender, the veil between “this” and “that” is much thinner. I have written about that before. What is remarkable (as in something to remark about or worth considering) is that to daily walk in this reality is to turn what many people think is reality on its head. Disconcertingly, this is not easy. However, easy is overrated.

With that, I’ll come back to the title of this essay and to my conclusion about a thing such as “the space in between.”

I actually don’t think I live in the space in between … a kind of netherworld which is neither fully one or the other. I think I live in both spaces, whether shuttling back and forth between them or, better yet, seeing each through the lens of the other. And that, I think, is what Jesus was trying to say. If there is a central message to his life and ministry, it is that the reality he called the “Kingdom of God” is present and available in this life. We are called to live fully here and now but in a paradigm that is radically different in nearly all respects from that which normally prevails. Yes, concepts such as we have to lose our lives to gain life are puzzling and even troubling. A few interpret that to mean we have to assume the life of an ascetic, denying even the most simplistic of pleasures. While some may feel called to that, I don’t believe that reflects the message of the Gospel. Yes, we are called to restraint and moderation for all sorts of good reasons. It is not the flesh that is bad. It is what is in our hearts and the things to which we ascribe ultimate value.

I believe it is that recognition that we are both fully fallen and fully saved that is so countercultural … so at odds with normal daily existence. And, to live within that reality, with all of the challenges, joys, sorrows, delights and struggles … to know and walk with God is to have one foot firmly planted in the “this” and the “that.” One day there will be no difference. Thank God.