"Thin Places"

Pastor Steve and Sister, Maureen, on a
Motorcycle Ride Up Mt. Evans

I was intrigued by this spiritual concept the moment I learned about it in Marcus Borg’s 2003 book,  The Heart of Christianity.  As I was mulling over what to call my blog site, I wanted something that would be larger than any given topic on which I might reflect and that would serve to focus not only my readers’ difficult-to-articulate hungers for God but also my own.  The notion of “thin places” accomplishes both for me.

Below is the first entry in this blog entitled “Yearning for Thin Places,” posted Saturday, May 5, 2012, which serves to orient new and returning readers to what this blog is all about.  My hope is that it will be a thin place for you more often than not.  God’s blessings to you.

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I discovered Marcus Borg on a mission trip to Romania that I was leading back in the summer of 2003.  I took along one of his books with the intriguing title, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the Bible Seriously but Not Literally.  The title called to me because I hungered for a fresh way to read and interpret the Bible that would set me free from a "stuck place" in my reading, entrenched as I was at the time in a woefully narrow and unworkable hermeneutic.  But that is a reflection for another occasion.  The point is that that first exposure to Marcus Borg's writings launched me on a quest to deepen my spiritual life with him as a trusted, if not altogether familiar, guide.

Early on in that quest, I was referred to this book, The Heart of Christianity, which helped me to develop a richer and more textured sense of the Christian faith and what the point of that faith really is.  Chapter 8 in that book, "Thin Places: Opening the Heart", gave me a metaphor that has stimulated my spiritual musings ever since.  Borg describes the notion of "thin places" as deriving from Celtic Christianity and capturing the essence of what the Christian faith is about: transforming the heart and soul of the individual through encounter or near-encounter with the person of God, the Holy, Spirit, Christ (in the context of the Christian faith).  He says, "...there are minimally two layers or dimensions of reality: the visible world of our ordinary experience and God, the sacred, Spirit.  'Thin places' are where these two layers of reality meet or intersect" [p. 155].  He then goes on to relate that these "thin places" can be any of a number of events, places, objects, persons, aspects of creation, what have you that serve to facilitate our experience of the crossing over, if you will, of these two layers of reality. The result is what is variably called a "religious experience", "God speaking to me", "a holy moment", "an encounter with God", etc.  I call these transforming encounters with Christ, who mediates, informs, and interprets the experience of God in my life.

I want to do more with this concept over the course of the next several weeks or months, and I will be relying on this notion of "thin places" to speak metaphorically for us of this experience of God in our lives.  I find myself yearning for thin places more and more in my work, relationships, and ministry.  I will look forward to sharing this with you and to hearing some of your own stories of experiencing thin places in your own journeys of faith.

Xaris kai Shalom
Grace & Peace,

Steve
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