Thin Places

This is the end. There may be more warm days; there may be more golf and tennis and boating; there may even be those who defy the Eleventh Commandment by wearing white after this weekend; but we all know that summer is over. It ends with the last burned hamburger of the final Labor Day cookout. On Tuesday morning real school begins; real work begins. Real church meetings begin. The only consolation we have is that road construction crews will soon begin to put away their toys and let us have our roads back for a few months.

This has always been both an exciting and a challenging time for me. That hint of coolness in the air re-energizes me as I meet with committees; think through ideas for programs; and prepare notes for early morning bible study. I also come into this time with promises that I make to myself. I will take more time for spiritual reading and reflection. I will develop a realistic schedule that allows more flexibility each week for visiting folks. I will not become so immersed in minutia that I forget to step away to view the greater whole. The one promise that I make each year and break each year is that I will spend some time each week doing something interesting or fun or healthy that has nothing to do with schedules or meetings or that old minutia. I think they call that taking time to smell the roses.

Is this an issue with you? Do you dive into the busy-ness of the September moment and discover when you come up for air, that Halloween ghosts are ringing the doorbell and you forgot to get candy? I love this season and maybe this year, I will actually notice the colors as the leaves change.

In all our comings and goings; many of us get so involved with living that we forget what life is about until we are brought up short by an event that reminds us all over again about life. Haven’t we all spent the last week seeing pictures; listening to reports and expressing our shock at the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast? One week ago, New Orleans was a boisterous; charming city nicknamed “The Big Easy.” Today it is no longer a city. It is a terrible place of chaos where the very act of living is a matter of life and death. In the impersonally personal way of television, we have seen the flooding and the people on rooftops. We have seen bodies floating in the water. We have seen tears on the faces of those whose love ones have died and whose homes and jobs are ruined. We have become angry on behalf of those thousands of people who have waited for buses that did not come while their children and elderly parents grow increasing frail from lack of food and water. At one point I was talking to the television. I found myself asking the interviewer if she had food and water and where she was going to stay that night. And how could we not notice that virtually all of those refugees are African Americans who could not afford to leave before the storm. As sad as I feel when our neighbors in the Vermont Guard are sent off to Iraq; I am glad that we are sending those Guard neighbors to be of help. They will be working on our behalf and I am grateful for their presence in the midst of that chaos that continues to reveal both the strength and the ugliness of the human character.

We have seen so much ‘life’ over the past 4 years that I wonder if we may be growing immune to both the horror and the awe that life imparts. As this immunity develops into a thick shell, where do we find God? In his book, The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg relates the story he was told about a three year old girl who was about to become an older sister. He writes: “Within a few hours of the parents bringing a new baby boy home from the hospital, the girl made a request. She wanted to be alone with her new brother in his room with the door shut. Her insistence about being alone with the baby with the door shut made her parents a bit uneasy, but then they remembered that they had installed an intercom system in anticipation of the baby’s arrival, so they realized they could let their daughter do this and if they heard the slightest indication that anything strange was happening, they could be in the baby’s room in an instant. So they let the little girl go into the room, shut the door and raced to the intercom listening station. They heard their daughter’s footsteps moving across the baby’s room, imagined her standing over the baby’s crib, and then they heard her saying to her three day old brother, ‘Tell me about God – I’ve almost forgotten.” (p.113)

“Tell me about God; I’ve almost forgotten.” How often can we say that about ourselves? When things are going well; when living is a ‘piece of cake;’ we store God in that little container in our hearts that is labeled: Open only in case of emergency. When the inevitable crisis occurs; be it personal or something cataclysmic; we open that container largely to complain: Where were you, God? Why did you allow this to happen? Or to bargain: help me out here, God; I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll be a better person.

What would life be like if we held ourselves open to the mystery of God? How would we be transformed with our minds and spirits alert to the constant loving presence of God? Celtic Christianity draws its theology from its druidic roots. The ancient peoples who brought their sense of the divine presence in and around all things into Christianity have given us the idea of ‘thin places.’ Those times and/or those places when we experience a moment of divine reality mean that the shells we have constructed around ourselves have thin spots where God’s light and love penetrate for a surprising moment. Sometimes we look for those thin places without realizing that we are searching. Watching the sunset over the lake and finding a moment of peace or sitting on Church Street with an ice cream cone, enjoying the vitality of life in the form of families, students, buskers in a never-ending parade can both be thin places. There need be no sudden pulsating sign announcing that God is present. When we allow ourselves to relax into a moment and that moment brings us joy or strength or connection to the world around us; we are in a thin place; we are in touch with the divine.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist Monk/theologian reflects that: “Life is simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Godself everywhere, in everything – in people and in things and in nature and in events. It becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without God. It’s impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.” (Heart of Christianity, p. 155)

How would life change for you; for me, if we taught ourselves the simplicity that Merton describes? Can we restore wonder to our eyes and ears and hearts; a wonder that encompasses not only the beauty of nature but also the beauty of life itself? There is a miracle in every breath that we take; every beat of our hearts. As our minds absorb the news that we see and hear from New Orleans and also from the terrible bridge tragedy in Iraq; we feel sorrow and hurt and anger and shock and empathy and helplessness, don’t. We. I certainly do. Despite the gravity of these events, these are yet other miracles; miracles of connection. It is not for ourselves that we have those feelings; it is for our family members; our brothers and sisters who are in pain.

Paul wrote to the Christian Community in Rome: “The only thing you should owe to anyone is love for one another, for to love the other person is to fulfill the law.” (Rom. 13:8) How amazing it would be if the wonder we begin to feel at the miracle that is each of us; grows into realization that all humanity shares in this miracle. All of us: the saints and the sinners; the rich and the poor; the innocent and the guilty; the greedy and the graceful; each one of us is a miracle. When I begin see that touch of God in my sisters and brothers, I change. I grow. I forgive and I seek forgiveness. I am transformed. This is the love that Paul teaches. This is the one commandment that encompasses every religious and civil law. Out of this law flows justice, respect, generosity, and care. It is that simple.

As we begin the busy-ness of living, could we hold ourselves open to those thin places, those profound in-breaking moments of divine love? Could we also remember to celebrate the various miracles that fill each of us and everyone else with the gift of life? The God’s spirit encompasses and abounds even in dark times and sad places. May we all begin to remember God. Amen.