Recently I read a short article that piqued my interest and set me thinking. The author, Jocelyn Sideco, about whom I know nothing except she is a retreat minister, talked about “thin places.” I know a little about this concept which arises from Celtic spirituality. Thin places are those places where heaven and earth meet. They could be described as an edge, boundary or margin. When one gets to the edge, you are almost to another place. Thin places can be issues of space or time.
I share the opening lines of Sideco’s reflections, hoping you also will be intrigued. She says, “Much happens in the space between. Where I end and you begin. Where day ends and night begins. Where we end and God begins.” I like the idea of a “space between.” We all know the space between ourselves. Even between lovers, there is some small space. Granted there may be those moments when the two of us feel like one, but these moments always end and we awaken to the realization that the oneness is really two who are close. Perhaps that is why couples or two friends can talk about being “very close.” That is probably a description of a thin place.
I would like to think this is possible between each of us and God. There may be times when my relationship with God felt closer to this reality, but too often I think I get too busy or inattentive and it creates the space between me and God into a thick place. In fact, I suspect God spends time “thinning” and I waste time “thickening!”
Sideco spends some time recounting the various places that at thin places for her. And she mentions some times, too. I very much enjoyed the part of her article which tells of her visit to the Scotland island where the Iona Community was re-founded. I know a few other folks who have spent some time at Iona and it changed their lives. This former medieval abbey was refurbished in 1938 by the Scottish pastor, George McLeod. She quotes McLeod, who says about Iona, it is a “thin place as where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.”
Sideco confesses that “I sought quiet, solace, stillness within a community of faith-seekers who, like any good sunset, beautifully lived into the dream of its becoming each and every day.” She continues to describe her expectations and hopes for this time at Iona. “The community was composed of different individuals each day, yet the same community of voices, intentions, desires are present time and time again. In a thin place, much can happen without seeming like anything has changed. In fact, it is in the changing that the space between gets its character, defines its contours, gets its elusive character.”
I am given hope, too, when I realize that community does not have to be the same individuals grouped together all the time. Community is not solid, like a brick. Community is more fluid, more malleable. Community is self-defining, but also open and expectant that it will be Other-defined as well. God as Spirit comes to and comes into a community of seekers and forms and transforms them into a unity in the moment. It becomes an experience in which the community can talk about being “very close,” while recognizing our individuality remains intact.
Sideco moves next into a consideration of life and death as an example of thin places. Let’s hear her words and then reflect. “The space between life and death seems imminent, mysterious and oddly seductive. Let me be more exact: The space between nothingness and birth and the space between breathing and death feels extremely thin, maybe too dark for some, maybe too fragile for others. Life is not the opposite of death, birth is. Life is all of it, especially the spaces where I end and you begin.”
I may be old enough to have thought about death, but I agree that the space between our life and death is mysterious. I am not sure about seductive! Maybe I am not close enough yet. I suspect that the space between that last breath and death is quite thin. I can remember watching more than one person in hospice die and being fascinated by which breath would be the very last one. It is always sudden and never sudden.
I love her idea that life is the “all of it” between birth and death. And for the spiritual ones, every moment is the time in which we live “all of it” all of the time. Otherwise, we are wasting our chance to be all we can be. That is not a Madison Avenue slogan, but it is divine hope for all of us: be all you can be…every moment.
Having digested all that Sideco is telling us, I think there are thin places all around us and thin times available most of the time. As usual, the recipe to realize this is simple. Become more aware. Pay attention. Be open. Every day and every moment the Spirit of God gifts us with opportunity.
These are all thin opportunities. Don’t mess them up by thickening!
I share the opening lines of Sideco’s reflections, hoping you also will be intrigued. She says, “Much happens in the space between. Where I end and you begin. Where day ends and night begins. Where we end and God begins.” I like the idea of a “space between.” We all know the space between ourselves. Even between lovers, there is some small space. Granted there may be those moments when the two of us feel like one, but these moments always end and we awaken to the realization that the oneness is really two who are close. Perhaps that is why couples or two friends can talk about being “very close.” That is probably a description of a thin place.
I would like to think this is possible between each of us and God. There may be times when my relationship with God felt closer to this reality, but too often I think I get too busy or inattentive and it creates the space between me and God into a thick place. In fact, I suspect God spends time “thinning” and I waste time “thickening!”
Sideco spends some time recounting the various places that at thin places for her. And she mentions some times, too. I very much enjoyed the part of her article which tells of her visit to the Scotland island where the Iona Community was re-founded. I know a few other folks who have spent some time at Iona and it changed their lives. This former medieval abbey was refurbished in 1938 by the Scottish pastor, George McLeod. She quotes McLeod, who says about Iona, it is a “thin place as where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.”
Sideco confesses that “I sought quiet, solace, stillness within a community of faith-seekers who, like any good sunset, beautifully lived into the dream of its becoming each and every day.” She continues to describe her expectations and hopes for this time at Iona. “The community was composed of different individuals each day, yet the same community of voices, intentions, desires are present time and time again. In a thin place, much can happen without seeming like anything has changed. In fact, it is in the changing that the space between gets its character, defines its contours, gets its elusive character.”
I am given hope, too, when I realize that community does not have to be the same individuals grouped together all the time. Community is not solid, like a brick. Community is more fluid, more malleable. Community is self-defining, but also open and expectant that it will be Other-defined as well. God as Spirit comes to and comes into a community of seekers and forms and transforms them into a unity in the moment. It becomes an experience in which the community can talk about being “very close,” while recognizing our individuality remains intact.
Sideco moves next into a consideration of life and death as an example of thin places. Let’s hear her words and then reflect. “The space between life and death seems imminent, mysterious and oddly seductive. Let me be more exact: The space between nothingness and birth and the space between breathing and death feels extremely thin, maybe too dark for some, maybe too fragile for others. Life is not the opposite of death, birth is. Life is all of it, especially the spaces where I end and you begin.”
I may be old enough to have thought about death, but I agree that the space between our life and death is mysterious. I am not sure about seductive! Maybe I am not close enough yet. I suspect that the space between that last breath and death is quite thin. I can remember watching more than one person in hospice die and being fascinated by which breath would be the very last one. It is always sudden and never sudden.
I love her idea that life is the “all of it” between birth and death. And for the spiritual ones, every moment is the time in which we live “all of it” all of the time. Otherwise, we are wasting our chance to be all we can be. That is not a Madison Avenue slogan, but it is divine hope for all of us: be all you can be…every moment.
Having digested all that Sideco is telling us, I think there are thin places all around us and thin times available most of the time. As usual, the recipe to realize this is simple. Become more aware. Pay attention. Be open. Every day and every moment the Spirit of God gifts us with opportunity.
These are all thin opportunities. Don’t mess them up by thickening!
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