Thin Places
The Celtic believers thought of thin places as physical, geographic locations where the barrier between heaven and earth is porous because the Lord, in his kindness, met a person there. Joel Busby
Gregg’s Reflection
I read a fascinating article in the NY Times Travel section entitled, Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer, by Eric Weiner. Weiner describes these places in this way:
I’m drawn to places that beguile and inspire, sedate and stir, places where, for a few blissful moments I loosen my death grip on life, and can breathe again. It turns out these destinations have a name: thin places. They are locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent or, as I like to think of it, the Infinite Whatever.
The ancient pagan Celts, and later, Christians, used the term to describe mesmerizing places like the wind-swept isle of Iona (now part of Scotland) or the rocky peaks of Croagh Patrick. Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.
Mircea Eliade, the religious scholar, writing in his classic work “The Sacred and the Profane,” observed that “some parts of space are qualitatively different from others.” An Apache proverb takes that idea a step further: “Wisdom sits in places.”
Often, in such places, time burst its banks. I was awash in time. That’s a common reaction to a thin place. It’s not that we lose all sense of time but, rather, that our relationship with time is altered, softened. Many thin places are wild, untamed, but cities can also be surprisingly thin.
I was drawn to the piece, because God revealed Himself to me in the Rocky Mountains, and I was drawn back time and again. I had never heard the term ‘thin places’ before seeing this article, but certainly know the feelings expressed. As we were selling the business, Genie and I decided to build a cabin in the Colorado mountains.
Our agent described a parcel they had listed as the most beautiful land she had seen on the market in a decade. In early January, 2000, she drove us up to see the property. We drove through foot-deep snow drifts in the ¾ mile road through the National Forest to the land. As we turned the last corner, we came out of the woods and a view opened up.
The land is in the Montane zone at 9000 feet, and views include the Front Range and plains beyond, the Continental Divide and two Fourteeners, Mt Blue Sky and Longs Peak. There was a small peak behind the house, and from the top, you can see 360 degrees. Ponderosa, Lodgepole and Limber Pines mix with Douglas Firs and Aspen groves.
We were speechless, stilled by the beauty. Genie and I walked the property for a few minutes and looked at each other. We shared the same thoughts, “This is the place.” We did not look at another piece of land. We purchased the place before seeing it a second time.
Soon after we built the cabin, creating a home place where family and friends have gathered for two decades now. As we explore the land, it continues to give up its secrets to us. Black Bear, Mountain Lion, Bobcat, Coyote, Fox, Hawk, Eagle and Owl all hunt the property. Moose, Elk and Mule Deer graze on the meadow grasses. Squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits abound. The quiet is almost unnerving. When the wind dies, you experience silence rarely seen in the world today.
We have marked trails into the surrounding forest. We hike the land in the summer, ski and snowshoe in winter. God continues to reveal Godself through the beauty and the web of life on the mountain, moments of awe and delight. Wildflowers begin to bloom within a week of the snowmelt, and continue until the snows return.
We feed many beautiful birds, including woodpeckers and hummingbirds, and observe them nesting and raising young. Once we saw four Golden Eagles at once, as parents taught their young to hunt our mountain meadows.
God continues to reveal His mysteries as we spend weeks and months admiring the beauty of His creation surrounding our cabin. We hold spiritual retreats here, and have offered our loft as a sabbatical space. Prayers and plans have turned from dreams to visions as people seek the solitude to find a new way of seeing. Often, it is when we get out of our routine that sparks of imagination and creativity flow. In Jeremiah, we read the promise, “If you seek God with all your heart, you will find Him.” When you wander the trails of Eagle Peak, you will get glimpses of God through His created world. It is a place where heaven and earth come nearer.
Join us as we explore thin places where heaven and earth meet.
Blessings, Gregg
Journaling Prompts
Where have you encountered thin places, and how did you know? What characterizes the thin places you’ve visited? How might you make your little corner of the world a thin place?
Scripture
Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.
Exodus 3:1, the burning bush might be the original Biblical thin place
Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently.
Exodus 19:18 Mount Sinai was an early thin place
When the priests withdrew from the Holy Place, the cloud filled the temple of the Lord. And the priests could not perform their service because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled his temple.
1 Kings 8:10-11
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Matthew 5:8
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the peole, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
Revelations 21:3
Ancient Writing
The earth is but a canvas for our imagination; in the thin spaces, we find colors that are not seen in everyday daylight.
Khalil Gibran
Modern Writing
Thin Places: Where Heaven and Earth Meet. There are places of beautiful mystery in the natural world. I bet you’ve found one at some point in your life. Maybe you’ve been lucky enough to find many of them. In the Celtic tradition these places are called Thin Places. This is because the veil which separates Heaven from Earth is thin. You feel like you could almost touch Heaven, or even taste it.
Justin Coutt, 1/20/20 New Eden
What are Thin Places? Thin places are places of energy. A place where the veil between this world and the eternal world is thin. A thin place is where one can walk in two worlds as the worlds are fused together, knitted loosely where the differences can be discerned or rightly where the two worlds become one.
Truth abides in thin places; naked, raw, hard to face truth. Yet we also find the comfort, safety and strength to face that in those same mystical spaces. Thin places captivate our imagination, yet diminish our existence. We become very small, yet we gain connection and become part of something larger than we can perceive.
Simply put, a thin place is a place where one feels that mysterious power that is God. The place itself calls you, draws you into itself, transports you into the presence of the world beyond this world. The thinness of place moves you into the presence of the mysterious power. There, all things you perceive through your senses are charged, electrified, illuminated with the presence of that power.
Our spirits learn differently than our minds. All through our lives we walk through these places. Some people notice the thinness. Some do not. This brings us to another characteristic of thin places. They are often marked by human spirits that have gone before, felt the thinness and been changed by it. Thin places not only transcend the senses, but transcend the boundaries of time and space.
While you’re there, time seems to stand still, and there is a communion with the human spirits that have walked there before and are yet to walk. Thin places are all about connection with God, with the Other world and with all who have lived, are living and will live in generations to come. Thin Places are ports in the storm of life, where the pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek, where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence. They probe to the core of the human heart and open the pathway that leads to satisfying the familiar hungers and yearnings common to all people on earth, the hunger to be connected, to be a part of something greater, to be loved, to find peace.
It’s not clear who first uttered the term “thin places,” but they almost certainly spoke with an Irish brogue.
Eric Weiner, Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer, NY Times, 3/9/12
The Celtic believers thought of thin places as physical, geographic locations where the barrier between heaven and earth is porous because the Lord, in his kindness, met a person there.
These places are peppered throughout the Bible’s narrative. From Eden to a burning bush, from the banks of the Nile to the summit of Mount Carmel, from stables in Bethlehem to Mars Hill—major moments in salvation history occurred in thin places. These places offer three gifts.
1. Thin Places help us move our faith from abstract to concrete.
To rework a phrase from Wendell Berry, God’s Providence is an idea. As embodied beings, we must remember our faith is not an abstraction. We serve a God who engages his work in the most down-to-earth manner.
Take Exodus for example. The Lord moved in time and space to fulfill all his promises. God’s faithfulness came alive on a mountain, in a wilderness, and in a burning bush. At the Red Sea, the promises made to Moses became concrete when seawater split apart and a trail of freedom formed. And, of course, on a little hill outside Jerusalem, the place of all thin places, the veil between earth and heaven was not just thin but completely torn. The Lord didn’t save in the abstract but through a real death in a real place.
2. Thin Places serve as a portal for our memory.
Memory and worship are connected in the Bible. When the people of God remember rightly, they worship.
So we need ways to remember. We need prompts and conversation pieces. Joshua commanded the people to take stones and make a memorial because he knew it would prompt questions from children. When asked, the older generation would recall and recount God’s faithfulness. An object and location would help the nation to remember and proclaim what God had done.
3. Thin Places whet our appetite for the day when every place will be thin.
One day, the whole created order will be transformed. Every place will be overwhelmingly thin. The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth like water covers the sea. As renewed, but still embodied, creatures, we’ll know and experience the renewed, but still tangible, new heavens and earth. But for now, thin places prepare us for the presence of God.
Joel Busby, 3 Gifts of a Thin Place: The Locations that Mark where We Met with God, The Gospel Coalition, 1/27/23.
