Vision
Thresholds are liminal spaces where we transition from one reality, one chapter, or one physical space to another. Some thresholds we anticipate, while others arrive unexpectedly.
“The point with thresholds is how we cross them. The challenge — the question to live — is this: How to cross them worthily?”
—John O’Donoue, Irish poet and priest
Moving Forward Together
The community of Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Birmingham, Alabama crossed an unwelcome threshold in June of 2022 when a person peripherally associated with the church attended a potluck supper and killed three beloved parishioners. The outpouring of love and support from the immediate and greater communities shone exponentially brighter than the darkness in one man’s heart.
Broken open by loss, the community moved forward choosing hope over despair; connection over isolation; courage over fear.
While the shooting may not have been a direct result of the loneliness epidemic, spiritual desolation, and divisiveness prevalent in our culture, it prompted an awareness of the deep pains in our world and a desire to create a welcoming space for healing and transformation.
The Threshold Center is a response of love to a community that supported the people of Saint Stephen’s through unspeakable loss.
With a deep desire to promote well-being and strengthen connections, Saint Stephen’s rector, the Rev. John Burruss and church’s leadership chose to designate a property entrusted to them—a small church at the heart of the Cahaba Heights neighborhood, known as the Chapel of Saint John’s—as the home for this new initiative. The natural and architectural beauty of the Saint Stephen’s/Threshold Center campus is uniquely suited for providing restorative encounters. Environmental stewardship is a core value. Expansive gardens are being transformed to a native plant sanctuary ideal for meditation and forest bathing. The newly installed memorial labyrinth and fountain, a safe haven for walking our prayers.
For those who seek connection and belonging, the Threshold Center is a safe, inclusive place to gather and engage the heart, body, and imagination–because we are all connected to something greater than ourselves.
The counter-cultural practice of listening devoutly to those who have different life experiences and perspectives is honored as a path to better understanding ourselves, one another, and the sacred. This new venture recognizes that more people than ever are longing for connection, yet feel alienated by the faith communities, political spaces, and other institutions that promise it. The longer we go without those spaces, the more isolated we become–from ourselves, one another, and from the natural world, and the arts that ground us.
We believe people find belonging not through conformity, but through a collective embrace of what it truly means to be human. Resiliency becomes a shared practice where healing and growth are supported by the community. Curiosity and creativity flourish, and our ability to feel safe and at home in the world and our bodies is restored.