Thin Places

         There is a phrase that the "religious" folk I know use to describe places where one encounters the Divine.  We refer to them as "thin" places: places where the barrier between this world and something more sacred, more spiritual, more mystical becomes thin.  These are places where you can feel God, whatever it is that God means to you, where you can touch something beyond this world, where the presence of the holy becomes almost tangible.  There are specific places around the world that are often described as these thin places, places where the Divine seems to hover, play, reach down to us, or simply to be more accessible.  Four of the thin places I have visited are Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, Zephyr Point in Lake Tahoe, Iona in Scotland, and Asilomar Beach near Monterey, though there are many other such places.  These are enchanting, almost magical areas where the beauty of nature seems to stretch out forever.  When you are in these places, you feel the ruach, or Spirit through every single breathe you take. There is a sense that time stops, or moves differently, while you are there: clocks have no meaning and the only thing that is important is being, is existing, is breathing.  In each of these places it feels that you not only see and breathe beauty, but you become part of it.  There is a thinness not just between the sacred and mundane, but between yourself and all creation.  It is easier to understand at these sites that everything really is just ONE and that you are a small part and yet an essential part of the rhythm and movement of life, of love, of existence, of being.
        Perhaps it is harder to feel this amidst the craziness of the cities and suburbs where many of us live.  When people are rude, angry or unkind and you have to watch with an incredibly alert eye driving around because of the craziness of those who are focused solely on their own needs, their own schedules, their own desires and worries in this life, it is harder to open yourself to connection with all things.  I shrink from taking down the wall between myself and those who cannot see me as anything but a barrier, an unfortunate obstacle on their path to rush to wherever they are going next.  Being open in those moments means being vulnerable to another's anger and angst and that is uncomfortable, to say the least.  It is harder to maintain a strong sense of the presence of God in the face of so much busyness that tends to have greedy and self-serving aspects to it.  
        But this weekend I found myself reflecting that "thin places" are not just physical places where we might go.  I attended a concert Saturday evening where a piece was performed that was so incredibly beautiful that I found tears running down my face before I was even aware of it.  I was moved beyond myself and into that place of "thinness" where I wanted to literally be part of the music, where I was enveloped in something beyond this world, where I was transported beyond the journey we walk and into the Presence in which we live.  Recently someone told me about a sunset she had seen that was so beautiful that she wept because she wanted to be in the sunset, to be enveloped in its beauty beyond just the visual experience of seeing it.  Each of our senses can bring us into that place of thinness: the song of a bird, the beauty of a forest, the smell of the mountains, an unexpected and wondrous taste, the ocean waves lapping against our feet: all of these can bring us into a sense of the eternal, into a deep connection with all that is awe-some and profoundly lovely, into a timeless place of pure being.  Experiencing or witnessing acts of kindness can also move us into those places of realizing there is good, that we are surrounded by something that encourages generosity, care, openness and love when we are open to it.
        As the piece of music that touched and deepened in me as a "thin place" came to a conclusion, I glanced around me at the other people attending the concert.  While many appreciated the music, not all had been moved in the same way.  Not everyone in that space had encountered the Divine, a transcendent moving, a connection to the beyond.  And I realized that thin places are not universally so.  When I was on Iona, those we travelled with did not experience it in the same way.  It was "very nice" but not transformational for everyone, as it had been for me.  When I am at Lake Tahoe, I have heard people snipping at their children or complaining about their lodgings: for them, too, that place may be a nice place to visit, but it does not always refresh, reform and renew in the way it does for me.
         The truth is that encountering a thin place is much more about how we stand in any particular moment.  We have met people who radiate "holiness," for lack of a better term.  These are people (like the Dalai Lama, Father Chacour, Maya Angelou, Ben Weir, Mr. Rogers) who, when you stand in their presence your breathing changes.  You slow yourself and are present despite whatever else is going on with you.  They call this out of us because of their stance in this life.  They see the holy that is there around them all the time.  They live in the wonder of the transcendent, and they are unafraid of the vulnerability of being open to the reality of our deep connection and unity to everything around us.  They create thin places around them for all of us who encounter them simply by standing in that thinness themselves.
        And the thing is, this is a stance that all of us can cultivate.  It takes intentionality, a willingness to be open to seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling and experiencing where God is in any one moment.  It requires breathing differently, moving with purpose rather than rushing around, taking time to not be human doings but to be human beings.  But, as we see with the people and places who are "thin" around us, when one is willing and able to do that, it is not just a gift to the persons being in that Divine presence, it is a gift to all around them too: one person's stance can cause others to also breathe differently, to move, hear, see, and experience our world differently.
       I am grateful for thin places, both physical places and the thin places that are created by art, by beauty, by kindness, and by courage.