Thin Places

It’s only been five years or so that I’ve been consistently fed spiritually in a Christian congregation - not just incidentally, but consistently.  I’ve experienced lots of good sermons, lots of thoughtful discussions.  Challenges and conflicts have become opportunities for growth. One subject has been brought up more than once and it comes out of Celtic spirituality, which defines what it calls “thin places.”  Thin places are locations in space or time where the barrier between a person and God is “thin,” and she or he is suddenly and unexpectedly granted a view.  I’ve read about this from Christian theologians and I heard it again recently in a sermon. It’s an experience sometimes described as an “overwhelming rush of love out of nowhere,” and it most often happens to children.  Never solicited, it is soft, bright, and powerful.  It happened to me twice and those incidents left permanent memories, memories to which I frequently return.  They have defined the personhood of my Higher Power and left me with a powerful hope. And I miss them.  It’s been a long time. One explanation for the lack of this experience for adults is our tendency, as we age, to take on innumerable distractions. We also indulge ourselves in prejuduce that makes life easier and sadly, cheaper.  Prejudice shuts out the open heart that is necessary to be close to the Creator.  If that is true then we are inclined to deteriorate spiritually as we age. But I wonder if there may be another possibility.  We all need love, but perhaps different manifestations of it as we age. Closeness, warmth, physical and spiritual bonding are universal for all ages, but as we grow in knowledge and wisdom perhaps God is expecting us to exercise our adult powers in showing that love to others.  Perhaps in the inspiration we exercise in our words, our art and music, our craft, our actions, we are dispensing that same pure love we may have experienced as children and in the very act of giving, we receive.