I was first introduced to the concept of “thin places” by reading the fiction of Madeleine L’Engle and Stephen R. Lawhead. It’s a concept drawn from Celtic spirituality that says there are particular physical places in the world where the veil between worlds is thin. It’s also a place where the normal rules of chronos time cease to apply and instead we get kairos time; God’s time. It’s a place where time and space seem to collapse into themselves and where, if you’re paying attention, you might be able to feel it and see it.
L’Engle and Lawhead both create fiction where people slip between time periods and into alternate dimensions. From the get-go I was fascinated by this idea. It’s the same fascination that draws me to reading about the work of exorcists. Both of these ideas say that there is more to the world than can be seen with the human eye; that the life we live is bigger than just us.
I grew up in a tradition that saw demons around every corner. Everywhere you looked Satan (or one of his minions) was waiting to trip you up. Danger was lurking and you needed to be always on your guard lest you stumble and fall into sin. Or, more dramatically, we were constantly waging a spiritual war. Going up against the forces of darkness with just our prayer lives to protect us. This thinking makes for interesting and exciting fiction but can scare the crap out of a little kid who is told that it’s all real.
It seems that belief in the demonic world and belief in thin places are two sides of the same coin. In each, there is another reality just out of sight. In the view of the demonic world, the space out of sight is controlled by Satan. The idea of thin places is much less frightening because that world out of sight is controlled by God. It’s kairos time. It’s a place where we get a sense of God’s reality. But for those of us who’s faith and spirituality are gritty and place-bound, both of these concepts can seem far-fetched or like wishful thinking.
As I left behind my fundamentalist evangelical roots, I mostly left behind ideas of the “spiritual world” as this other, concrete realm that we simply couldn’t see but that still existed and had a pull on us. My faith became concentrated in the here and now. My spirituality was about the concrete working out of justice. What mattered was what we did here, now, in this place.
And yet, I still prayed. And yet, I still felt drawn to contemplative practices, to the monastics, even to the idea of being a hermit attached to a community.
I recently read N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Hope. It’s the first book I’ve read of his. I know that some of his views (particularly on women and sexuality) are harmful and wrong, but this book was brilliant. He makes the case for the physical resurrection, not with proof texts or Lee Stroebel-Esque bombastic rhetoric, but by examining the tradition and Scripture.
One of his main arguments is that if we understand the resurrection of Jesus as a physical resurrection, and we understand, too, that our resurrection will also be physical, then we are left with an understanding that Heaven isn’t someplace “out there” somewhere, but it is the place where Jesus physically resides now. It exists alongside our own world, out of sight but very real. The role of followers of Jesus is to work to collapse this veil between heaven and earth.
Which brings us back to thin places. Wright talks about places where it is easier to worship, where prayer seems natural. In some instances he points to places where there has been continual worship for centuries and thereby that place has been made into a thin place.
His understandings fired me up. It made me think back to those L’Engle and Lawhead books that I loved so much and helped me to understand why I was so captivated by those concepts. What if prayer really does matter? What if it does bring about change? Not in the sense of a Santa Claus God who delivers ponies and parking spaces, but in the sense of bring the Kingdom of God ever close to this world we live in. What if we can pray and worship and contemplate thin places into being?
Suddenly the work of cloistered nuns, monastics, and hermits makes sense again. Suddenly the altar in my bedroom where I occasionally manage morning prayers becomes more important. Suddenly prayer takes on new meaning. And not just prayer, but my awareness and sensitivity to the work of Jesus in the world, to the Kingdom of God around me, to places in nature that seem to inspire a religious response; all of these things make sense and have meaning.
This work isn’t an escape. Our spirituality doesn’t become another way to flee from the world around us. It’s not a way to ignore the suffering and desperation that is everywhere. It’s not about securing our spot on the heaven-bound bus (and leaving the world to burn). In fact, as Wright says so eloquently in his book, the resurrection is about the world as well. God’s not going to whisk us all to Heaven; instead, God is going to resurrect this world. God is going to bring heaven and earth together, into one unified space. All of the work we do here and now, all of our struggle for justice, will be a part of the resurrected world. We are co-workers with God.
But it’s not just work with our hands; it’s also work with our hearts and minds. The mystic in me is thankful for a way to claim the reality of thin places. To believe that the hard work I do in my own heart, mind, and soul could make a real difference in the world around me.
It also gives meaning not just to my personal prayer life, but to the idea that all of our prayers joined together make a difference. It increases my awareness that praying and working thin places into being is a holy endeavor and that no action is wasted. It also forces me to pay attention to the places that are already thin and honor them.
I’ve been thinking a lot about wanting to be, in my very person, a thin place. That my presence in the world gives people a sense of the Kingdom of God. I want to live in such a way that when people encounter me they have a sense of kairos time and feeling. I want to live in such a way that I am already experiencing and living out the resurrection and that those around me will feel that and be inspired to live that way as well.
May we create thin places. May we be thin places.
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