Finding the 'Thin Places'

Both Barbara Brown Taylor, and Marcus Borg write about finding the "thin places" on one's spiritual journey. These are places along one's spiritual path where God's Spirit feels especially near. For some it is a moment or experience of transcendence, or a time when God reveals a vision of the future, or confirms a calling. At other times, these thin places can be moments of communion with God's wondrous creation.

In my personal journey, I have experienced these thin places most powerfully in my walks in nature. Eugene Peterson, in Living the Message, writes about how he and his wife take what he calls "Emmaus Walks"- walks in nature where they can restfully meditate on God's great love.

The photo shown above is from the Wissahickon Creek- which runs through Montgomery County, PA into Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. When I lived with my wife and daughter in Philadelphia, we were just a few minutes walk from this beautiful creek. I would go there often on long walks to be out in nature, get a little exercise, and meditate on God's presence in my life. For me, this was often a thin place.




In his wonderfully insightful book The Heart of Christianity, Borg writes of the ancient Celtic Christian concept of "thin places":

'Thin places' has its home in a particular way of thinking about God. Deeply rooted in the Bible and the Christian tradition, this way of thinking sees God, 'the More,' as the encompassing Spirit in which everything is. God is not somewhere else, but 'right here.'
. . .
A thin place is anywhere our hearts are opened. To use sacramental language, a thin place is a sacrament of the sacred, a mediator of the sacred, a means whereby the sacred becomes present to us. A thin place is a means of grace.

Worship can become a thin place, but so can a walk in a beautiful space in God's creation. It can be anywhere that we open our hearts to God and commune with the Holy Spirit.

Barbara Brown Taylor shares a bit about her struggle to find these places of spiritual renewal early in her ministry in her book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith:

Sixty hour weeks were normal, hovering close to eighty during the holidays. Since my job involved visiting parishioners in hospitals and nursing homes on top of a heavy administrative load, the to-do list was never done. More often, I simply abandoned it when I felt my mind begin to coast like a car out of gas. Walking outside of whatever building I had been in, I was often surprised by how warm the night was or how cold. I was so immersed in indoor human dramas that I regularly lost track of the seasons.

After years of driving herself unrelentingly with long weeks, little rest, and even less time with her husband, she found herself feeling spiritually depleted and seeking a thin place. She and her husband discerned that God was leading them to make a move from the busy urban church in Atlanta. They went to north Georgia, and when they arrived, found a beautiful piece of land at the confluence of two large streams with the Chatahoochee River overlooking breathtaking mountains. They had found a place of rest, and reflection. They ended up buying a tract of land and building a home there.

In John's Gospel, there was another woman feeling depleted and empty- seeking living water:

Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but hoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.'

Where are the thin places in your life today? Do they seem few and far between? For so many of us they do all too often. Seek God's peace and you will be found.

Peace to you in and in-between the thin places,

John