Thin Places

by Chris Findley

Sheryl and me at the Cliffs of Moher, 2003

In 2003 my wife and I went to Ireland on vacation.  I had been looking forward to this trip for years largely on account of my Irish blood.  Honestly, that Irish bloodline has been quite diluted over the course of several generations, but it is there and I claim every little bit of it!  There’s a part of me that’s always had a bit of a romance with the Emerald Isle, but when I visited there I knew that I was in this for the long haul –this was going to be a long-term love affair!  I feel that I connected with Ireland more than any other place on earth.

I distinctly remember watching the west of Ireland pass below the airplane as we made our descent toward the Shannon airport.  The thought of coming home, as totally irrational as that sounds, was very strong.  And every moment I was there it felt, well, special.  From the incredibly busy streets of Dublin to the beauty of the hills near Kilkenny to the tranquility of Kinsale to the farmland of Clare—everything seemed to almost envelope me with a sense of home.  It was as if I had been placed under the spell of the island.  That spell seems to still be working.

Why do we connect to a place?  What is it about the Divine that seems to reach down in touch a place?  What is it about us that senses the specialness or the significance of a place for our lives?

The Irish are very open to the idea of heaven and earth intersecting. The country is dotted with sacred places, monastic ruins, grottos, and roadside markers.    Never mind all the Irish lore of fairies and gnomes and tales of magical adventures.  Sometimes these places are called “Thin” places because it seems the barrier between heaven and earth seems so thin there.

In our day and age the idea of the Divine, of God reaching down into the stuff of earth may seem a little odd.  There’s a part of us that likes to neatly categorize things and much of the time we draw imaginary boundaries where we think God might or might not work.  We may expect to find a strong sense of His presence in Mass, but maybe not at the dinner table.  We may expect to find him speaking through the beauty of nature, but probably not during the grind of rush-hour traffic.

But this is human nature.  One glance through the Scriptures and we see that many of our forebears in faith were quite surprised at the places they found God.  Just consider Jacob.

He’s on the run from his brother Esau, from whom Jacob had stolen his Father’s blessing.  While on the run he’s quite surprised to stumble upon a place where the presence of the Lord is strong, a place where the Lord speaks…

When he came upon a certain shrine, as the sun had already set, he stopped there for the night. Taking one of the stones at the shrine, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep at that spot.

Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground, with its top reaching to the heavens; and God’s messengers were going up and down on it.  And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying: “I, the LORD, am the God of your forefather Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you are lying I will give to you and your descendants. These shall be as plentiful as the dust of the earth, and through them you shall spread out east and west, north and south. In you and your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing. Know that I am with you; I will protect you wherever you go, and bring you back to this land. I will never leave you until I have done what I promised you.”

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he exclaimed, “Truly, the LORD is in this spot, although I did not know it!”(Genesis 28:11-16, NAB)

I doubt Jacob ever forgot that place.  In fact, the next morning he makes a memorial out of the stone that he had slept upon.

I wonder how many times we miss the Lord’s presence because we assume that he’s just not here.  Because of that assumption, we’re don’t look or listen.

But Jacob teachers us a truth that is in keeping with my Irish sensibilities –the barrier that separates heaven and earth, time and eternity,  is much more porous than we probably realize.  There are “thin” places all around us!  It’s something we should have known, but perhaps along the way we forget.  Is this not the message of the Incarnation?  After all Jesus did promise, more than once, to never leave us.  Was not the Holy Spirit given to be His presence with us?  Is he not present, offering himself to us, at every Mass?  Yes and Yes and Yes!

The words of the great hymn, “Alleluia Sing to Jesus” says it well:

Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?