The concept is born from Celtic traditions and beliefs that certain locations give us opening into a place of sacredness. A place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin and where we can sense the divine more readily. People through time have been drawn to these locales.
Thin places change us. Sylvia Maddox writes "We return from thin places refreshed and renewed. We are graced with a new awareness of the thin places in all of life. Having seen the glimpses of glory in those sacred landscapes, we begin to see glimpses all around us. Soon the birds outside our window sing of the mystery we might have passed over in our busyness."
I believe thin places can also apply to events in life-moments in time when the veil is lifted and we are awash in the transcendent; the holy becomes ordinary and the ordinary holy. For example, birth and death. Neither of these things are rare, but for each person and family involved, it is unique. As Mary Oliver writes in When Death Comes"... and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,..."
Reflect on the thin places and events in your own life. Where is a place or event that refreshes your spirit and opens the door to the threshold of the sacred? You, too, can return to this place in your imagination and once again feel the power and fullness gifted to you by this place of possibility and strength.
