Magpies and the In-Between

Field Note: What swooping birds can teach us about waiting and the quiet work of the soul.

I didn’t believe it until it happened to me: a magpie swoop and hit. Not once, but on three different occasions. With blood drawn twice! Hard to explain to those folks who think magpies are just backyard songbirds, but trust me, these swoops are no joke.

The past two years I’ve made enemies with three of them. One even lives in my yard. Riding to work and home is fraught with fear and exhilaration in equal measure. A rite of Spring here in the land Down Under.

Spring in Australia doesn't arrive politely. It announces itself with blossoms, hay fever, and those black-and-white missiles that remind you the world is changing. And unlike many countries who mark the change of seasons by the equinox; it is always the First of September. Meanwhile, in the United States, Labor Day weekend has just passed: the unofficial end of summer, when barbecues and baseball give way to school buses and football.

That contrast got me thinking. Seasons aren't just about weather patterns. They mark our lives in different ways. Some are written into the calendar, others are felt deep in the soul. A season ends not only when the date ticks over, but when we sense the shift inside us: the first crisp morning, the last late sunset, or yes, the swoop of a magpie.

And some dates carry their own weight. Memories of joy or pain. Anniversary moments triggered by the smell of pumpkin pie, fresh flowers, or a song. Dates that claim us rather than us claiming them.

The truth is, we don't just live in seasons. We live between them.

Those in-between spaces can feel as fraught as a magpie-patrolled bike path. Uncertain, a little dangerous, but somehow essential to the journey. They are the waiting rooms, the thresholds, the moments when one chapter is fading and another is not yet clear. And perhaps that is where the deepest work happens: when we notice the shift, pause long enough to feel it, and let it teach us something new.

The word "liminal" doesn’t get used too much in everyday conversation. Which is a bit of a paradox, because liminal living is the ordinary. It's the common footsteps along the way that take us to the monuments and the mile markers. It's the hallway before the room. The silence before the song. The dawn before the day.

"Does anyone ever realize life while they live it…every, every minute?"

Emily asks this in the great American play, Our Town. Most of us don't. We rush through transitions, eager for the next milestone, and overlook the quiet weight of the in-between.

And maybe that's where the deepest soul work happens. I have always been fascinated by the mysterious untold parts of the Bible. The stories often show God meeting people in those liminal spaces: forty days and nights in the wilderness, forty years in the desert, the time between the cross and the empty tomb.

Liminal seasons don't have to be wasted time. They can become a kind of incubator, a classroom, where God does his quiet, re-orienting work in us.

So, I wonder: what 'in-between' season are we in right now? Is it the quiet before a new beginning, or the gentle descent after a long summer?

Instead of rushing through it, what would it look like to pause and notice the small shifts? To see this time not as a blank space, but as a moment with purpose?