Thin Places

There is a Celtic Christian tradition, going all the way back to the fifth century. It’s known as “thin places.” A “thin place” is a moment in time and space when we can sense the holy especially close to us. In that moment the veil between heaven and earth lifts a little and God reveals something to us.

The Bible says nothing about thin places, yet they appear throughout the Bible. The Garden of Eden, Mt. Sinai, and Gethsemane are good examples of places and times where God and humankind experienced an immediate and profound intimacy.  Such moments are unexpected and full of mystery. More than a hundred years ago, Albert Schweitzer wrote “He (Jesus) comes to us as one unknown, an ineffable mystery.” A sacred mystery which cannot be expressed in words of our own language.

Thin places can be specific geographic locations, becoming a destination for pilgrimages. Certainly the Holy Land is among these, but many have achieved more recent status as pilgrimage destinations: Guadaloupe, Medjugorja, Fatima, to name but a few. The islands of Iona and Lindisfarne are thought of as thin places among the Celts. Mecca is a thin place for Muslims, the most holy city in Islam.

But, there are other thin places, too, sometimes just a single occurrence for a single person, suggesting that individual attitude and openness may have something to do with when and where God chooses to self-reveal. There is the story of the rabbi and his young son. The son developed a habit of walking in the woods alone every day when he got home from school. At first, the rabbi allowed him to go, even alone, but after awhile he became concerned. After all, the woods could be full of danger for a young child. So, one day, he asked the boy why he went to the woods every day. The boy replied, “I go there to find God.” The rabbi replied, “Son, I’m happy you’re looking for God, but God is the same everywhere.” “Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”

The boy had found a place in nature where he was seeking God, and so was open to finding God there. Sometimes we stumble on thin places: when we are vulnerable to God’s approach, God approaches, and that place becomes, for us, a thin place. We might return, time and again, knowing that if we are prepared, so is God. Thin places have always been associated with nature, with solitude and quietness. Jesus often went off into the silence of nature to pray…the Garden of Gethsemane is a good example.

Schweitzer’s words ring true: He comes to us as one unknown. How and when will the holy come to you? Will you be open and receptive? To take that posture, we need to recover a sense of wonder and awe and reverence. Can you watch the journey of the butterfly, hear the sermon of the birds in song, feel the wind in your hair, smell the pine-scent of the forest, taste the herbed-earthiness of your nourishment? You don’t have to travel to faraway places; instead, take a “heart pilgrimage,” adopt a nomadic approach to life, always open to moving on, even if you don’t know where you’re going, freeing yourself from ruts and opening yourself to the creativity of the universe, liberating yourself from the past, which you cannot control, into a future of new relationships, new understandings, and the “still small voice” of God calling you onward.