Guest Post: Thin Places

Today I'm on my way to a monastery somewhere in Pennsylvania with my husband. I don't know where because my husband is a navigator in many senses of the word. He's a trained airplane navigator, a ship navigator, a fleet navigator and personal vehicle navigator. Ironically, we are headed to a Navigator staff summit. The Navigators is an international ministry organization my husband has been with for approximately three decades. I guess the organizers of this twice a year weekend really want to make sure we "retreat" because there is no Internet connection. In fact, there is no hair dryer in the room, no coffee pot, and no TV. The site is beautiful. The food is wonderful and the interaction with our peers is priceless.


I've arranged for a few blogging friends to "blog-sit" my baby while I'm gone. Today I'm happy to introduce Nancy Campbell. She is the reason I'm here today. We have a mutual friend who told me one day about Nancy wanting to get into a writing business and how she is blogging. I had been thinking about  writing a book to tell tales of Jonathan, but I was not brave enough to start. I thought a blog might serve my purposes. Wa La! Nancy became my second follower after our mutual friend. She's been a great encouragement to me since the beginning. I hope you enjoy her writing as much as I do. (P.S. My parents are baby-sitting my kids, lest you think I wasn't as attentive to my own biological children.)

I recently read Nadia Bolz-Weber's post about All Saints Sunday on her blog, Sarcastic Lutheran. She talks about the concept of "Thin Places."  I'll quote her directly, because my attempts to paraphrase would be, simply put, an abomination:

There’s a beautiful concept within Celtic thought called the Thin Places.  These are places where the veil between heaven and earth, human and divine, temporal and eternal, the now and the not yet is especially thin. Where we experience that which is beyond linear time and the limits of our 5 senses.  A thin place can be an actual place like the mountain tops and deserts of the biblical prophets or it can be an event like the birth of a child or the death of a loved one or for myself, the 4-part harmonic a capella singing of Amazing Grace.

I've written about this before, but I'll it bears repeating: writing helps me see the thin places. Sometimes, I have to look really, really, really hard, because I'm tired or cranky or the kids are being difficult. But, the act of looking is in and of itself an act of grace, a reminder to look for the beautiful, to turn the dross to gold. 


When I set an intention to look for the thin places (or "material" as I usually call it,) it's always there. My boys, or nature, or the act of solitude provides moments of transcendence. The veil between this life and the next becomes gossamer and transparent, and I see God. 


I don't mean that I see God as a vision of a man with a beard, or anything like that. Rather, I see the almost overwhelming beauty of this world, and I am flooded with gratitude. 


Today, my "thin places" were: 

*Watching fifteen-month old Joel's eyes as he zoomed down the slide. I could see them flash from fear to utter delight in an instant. Experience trumps fear, once again. 


*My toddler, Owen, was sitting by the back fence, feeding our neighbor's chickens bits of grass. "Here chicky, chicky!" he cried. "Let me take care of you!" 


*Owen laid in bed with me this morning, gently running his fingers through my hair. "So soft," he said. 

*As I sit here right now, I see a tree, brilliant orange, standing beautiful and proud, although all the other trees have surrendered their leaves for another season.  On some days, I am that tree. On other days, I am stripped bare, and ever-so-grateful to see that tree. 


The thin places lift my soul, daily. What were your thin places today? 

***
Nancy Campbell writes about one husband, two sons, and a great deal of foolishness at Away We Go. 


Thanks, Nancy. Don't you love how she puts words together and build images and experiences? I never come away from her blog without a new image imprinted in my mind...some thoughtful, some pleasing and some snarky.


Well, obviously I won't be reading and commenting on blogs this weekend. I hope that you'll come back tomorrow for a special education professor's suggestions to parents.