Stuck in Limbo? Good. That’s Where the Magic Starts

Why the fog between remorse and clarity is holy ground

Wandering in the Fog Is Part of the Map

Nobody likes limbo. We want GPS for the soul: a glowing blue dot, a clear route, estimated arrival time. Instead, the spiritual path insists on fog. You step out bravely, ready for clarity, and the road disappears.

Remorse cracks you open. You know you can’t go back—at least not honestly—but the new horizon hasn’t shown itself yet. So you drift, waiting for God to show up with a flashlight.

And what do we usually do? Scramble for escape. Buy something. Distract ourselves. Double-down on self-improvement. Grab the next shiny “hack.” But

Cynthia Bourgeault

, leaning on the contemplative tradition in Practicing Living Presence: Discovering the Mind of Christ Within, says no—this fog is not a detour.

The fog is the path. Wandering is part of the map. The ache and uncertainty aren’t bugs in the system; they’re the initiation that makes everything else possible.

Remorse: The True Starting Gate

In the old City of Separation teaching, the doorway is not bliss but remorse. Not guilt—that small, moralistic voice that says, “You did bad.” Remorse is deeper. Existential. It whispers (or sometimes shouts): This can’t be all there is.

It can look like disillusionment with consumer culture. Or bone-tired weariness with shallow religion. For some, it’s nostalgia so piercing it feels like you’re remembering your true home, even if you’ve never seen it. William Styron caught the cry: “Give me a new universe, Lord. This one isn’t big enough.”

Without remorse, you’d never leave the comforts of the city. You’d never look for the “mind of Christ” within. That ache is the starting gate. The portal. Not the problem.

But What About the Fog?

Here’s the catch. Remorse doesn’t fling you straight onto some golden highway of transformation. It strands you in fog. You’ve outgrown the old illusions, but you don’t yet see the new horizon.

This liminal space feels awful. You stumble around, try a dozen paths, crash into dead ends. It feels humiliating, like you’re wasting years. But every tradition says the same: you can’t shortcut this.

Why? Because in the fog, something essential is forming—patience, humility, the muscle to endure unknowing without latching onto the first guru who smiles at you.

The waiting isn’t delay. It’s fermentation.

St. Brendan and Seven Years in the Mist

The Irish saint Brendan knew this terrain. Legend says he and his monks sailed in mist so thick they couldn’t see stars or shoreline—for seven years. Rowing by faith, not by sight, until finally the fog broke and “the land promised to the saints” appeared.

Seven years. Not seven minutes. Not seven easy steps.

That story isn’t a weird exception; it’s the pattern. The mist is not punishment. It’s incubation. Seeds need dark soil before they sprout. Souls need fog before they can carry light.

Why the Fog Is Holy Ground

Cynthia, echoing Kabir Helminski’s Living Presence, says presence has to be cultivated right here—in confusion, shame, boredom, not just bliss.

This is where soul is built. Not a pre-packaged thing you unbox at birth, but something slowly co-crafted. We begin with essence and spirit, and over a lifetime the fog presses those together until soul takes shape.

The mist humbles us. Breaks our addiction to certainty. Strips away junk-food spirituality. And it tunes the ear to catch God’s quieter voice.

The Temptation to Short-Circuit

When you’re in limbo, you want out. Yesterday. That’s why the shelves groan under promises: “Raise your vibration.” “Manifest your destiny.” “One weekend to enlightenment.” Always the same message—you can bypass the fog.

But remorse plus fog is the honest way. Skip it, and you only end up with ego in church clothes. Spiritual junk food. Bourgeault calls it what it is: nostalgia masquerading as arrival. Without the ache, there’s no burn; without the burn, no depth.

How Presence Works in Limbo

So what do you do in limbo?

Not much. At least not the usual kind of doing.

You practice presence.

Not zoning out. Not passive waiting. Presence is noticing. Breathing. Whispering to yourself: Here I am. Still here.

Helminski is blunt: presence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a willed skill. You choose it. And limbo is where that muscle strengthens.

Every moment in fog—every morning you wake without clarity—is training ground. Presence doesn’t erase the mist; it teaches you how to walk inside it.

The Spiral, Not the Ladder

Thomas Keating warned us: spiritual growth is no tidy staircase. It’s a spiral. You don’t leave anger, fear, or shame behind like passing a grade in school. You circle back. Again. And again.

It’s humbling. You think: I forgave that. I’m past that. Then over morning coffee, resentment blindsides you. The fog closes in. You wonder if you’ve regressed.

But you haven’t. You’ve deepened. Each loop of the spiral brings more tenderness, more capacity to witness without collapse. Same wound, clearer seeing.

Cynthia reframes this: the spiral is integration, not failure. Each return weaves another thread into your soul’s tapestry.

It also shatters the myth of instant enlightenment. Even saints carried remnants of their old patterns. The difference? They saw them without panic. They could respond with compassion instead of compulsion, and keep circling Godward.

In the spiral, even stumbles are choreography. Every loop is a chance to embody Christ’s gaze instead of your old self’s.

The fog is part of the spiral’s atmosphere. It keeps you supple. Keeps you humble. Keeps you circling into love instead of marching into pride.

The Holy Inefficiency of Limbo

Our culture worships efficiency. Limbo, then, feels like failure. Nothing’s moving. No progress bar. Just gray.

But inefficiency is holy.

As one teacher put it: you can’t sail faster than the hull speed of your own boat. You can raise more sail, thrash at the water, but the vessel won’t go beyond what it’s built for.

Your soul has a hull speed too. The fog respects it. It won’t rip you forward before you’re ready.

That’s why the waiting matters. It shapes you into someone who can actually carry light without shattering.

What to Remember in the Mist

1. Remorse is the doorway, not the dead end.
   That ache isn’t pathology. It’s pressure cracking the seed. Don’t medicate it away. Let it split you open. Every tradition insists: remorse is initiation, not failure.

2. Fog is a feature of the map.
   Teresa of Ávila had her “interior darkness.” John of the Cross, his “dark night.” The Celts, their sea-mists. You’re in good company. If you can’t see the path, congratulations—you’re finally on it.

3. Presence is the practice.
   You may not know the destination, but you can know this step. This breath. This heartbeat. Every time you whisper “Here I am,” you wipe a little fog off the glass. Even if it steams up again, you’re practicing.

4. Patience is alchemy.
   Waiting is fermentation. Grapes become wine only by resting in barrels. Souls too. Remorse ferments into longing, longing into prayer, prayer into surrender. Slow burn is not optional—it’s how gold emerges from ore.

5. The mist is holy ground.
   Israel had its desert, Brendan his fog, you your limbo. Don’t despise it. Consecrate it. Every gray dawn, every ache of not-knowing carries divine electricity. When you hallow limbo, the fog itself becomes sacrament.

Conclusion: Good News for the Lost

If your prayers echo back empty, if the road ahead is swallowed in mist, if remorse clings without relief—don’t despair. You are not failing. You’re being fashioned.

The fog is not exile from God. It is God’s workshop.

This in-between, where you can’t go back and can’t yet see forward, is the womb of transformation. The land promised to the saints is real, but the route always runs through fog.

Those who dare to stay awake here discover the hidden gospel: limbo is not delay. It is initiation. Consecrated waiting.

St. Brendan rowed seven years before sighting shore. If you’re only in year one—or year seven—hold fast. The fog is not empty. The fog is where the magic starts.

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Credits

• Thanks to DALL-E for the cover art

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