kenosis in transitional/liminal space

 Martha Reineke in René Girard and Creative Mimesis:

Winnicott's work proves useful at this juncture.  As his work is interpreted by Ulanov, religion is  an environment "provided by a God who holds us in being."  This environment is healing to humans because each human's infancy and childhood inevitably has included gaps which have led them to falter in their reconnoitering of transitional space.  Ulanov finds Julian of Norwich's words descriptive of God's work: God "knits" humans into divine being, "oneing" them into God's being.  Likened to a mother, God stays with humans through all their ruthless attacks, surviving these attacks
"out of her own resilience" and, remaining empathetic, "mothering us into one whole persons living through her shared experience with us."


..Winicott's vision, Ulanov claims, has profound theological implications. She understands that “good enough parents” can facilitate in humans the development of a capacity for a capacity for symbol-making that supports creative explorations of being within transitional space ...In conversion,
new relationship is forged by a God who "eternally, graciously, enduringly offers relationship."  Ulanov describes in precise ways  how the Christian community of faith supports transitional space.
To meet God within this space, one must undergo kenōsis, emptying oneself in ways that mirror Christ's emptying himself in order to enter into human life. -René Girard and Creative Mimesis
pp. 45-6, link