Thresholds in Antigua: A Visual Examen
My friends and I are in the early stages of planning another trip to Guatemala next year. We're comparing travel rates, dreaming up itineraries, and hoping for good timing and good company. It’s still just a hope, but it’s stirring something in me.
I’ve been scrolling through photos from my last visit, and one keeps catching my attention: my friend and I, standing in a doorway.
I keep returning to it.
Thresholds are sacred spaces. They’re the in-between moments: before the yes, after the goodbye, during the deep breath. We cross them every day as we walk between rooms, between roles, between seasons of the soul.
And sometimes, grace meets us right there. Not necessarily at the arrival. Not in the departure. But in the pause. The pause for the picture. The pause in the adventure to capture a single moment in time.
As I looked through more photos from Antigua, I noticed a quiet pattern. I had photographed several doors, turquoise, coral, and sun-washed wood. Some were wide open. Some were shut tight. Some had no knob at all. Each one felt like a story waiting to be told.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was collecting thresholds. Invitations. Quiet questions.
As a spiritual director, I’ve come to see thresholds as holy ground. They’re where we pause long enough to ask:
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What is stirring in me?
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What am I being invited to release?
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What new way of being is quietly knocking?
In direction, we don’t rush people through the doorway. We sit beside them. We honor the ache, the ambiguity, the beauty of not-yet-knowing.
A Practice for Noticing
Scroll through your own photos. Feel free to look for a threshold, a doorway, a hallway, a porch, a pause. Sit with it. Ask:
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What transition am I living through right now?
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What do I need to release before stepping forward?
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What grace is waiting in the in-between?
You might find a photo of a child at the door, a suitcase on the threshold, a shadow stretching across a portico. Or maybe a door from your own travels, bright, chipped, beautiful. Let it speak. Feel free to walk through to the memory.
~Katie Rea, Writing Coach for WTC School of Spiritual Direction.
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