A Lenten Devotion by Karen Nell Smith
…In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees.
Psalm 104:17
I always felt that the farthest corner of my grandparent’s backyard was a “thin place.” It was a quiet, peaceful place with a lovely stone bench beneath tall pine trees. I loved visiting my grandparents in Vermont and couldn’t wait to run to the bench under the pine branches when we arrived. I can still hear the wind through the trees and the stillness of the valley, feel the coolness on my cheeks, and see the lush green grass, the surrounding corn fields and the tall majestic mountains rising in the distance. It was magical to a little girl from crowded suburban New Jersey and it will always be connected in my memories to the deep roots of my New England family and the unconditional love I felt in that place.
The ancient Celts believed that you could go to certain places to be closer to God. They called these “thin places,” where one experiences a very thin divide, a doorway, between the past, present, and future. Celtic Christians kept this notion of honoring “thin places.” They saw these doorways, not just in physical places, but in moments, too, when God’s presence is closer…in prayer, in the sacraments, in worship experiences.
A friend once told me she tucks her children into bed each night, their teeth brushed and their hair still damp from the bathtub, and she asks them this question, “Where did you meet God today?” And they tell her, one by one: a teacher helped me, there was a homeless person in the park, I saw a tree with lots of flowers in it.
And she tells them where she met God, too. Before the children drop off to sleep, the stuff of their day has become the substance of prayer. They enter a thin place and the presence of God is very near.
Where are your “thin places”?
Lead us, Holy One, to thin places, so we may awaken to your presence.