Thin Places

I’ve been in many “churches” and some of them were actually buildings erected over the last millennium as sacred spaces to worship our gods. I’ve stood at the altar of Westminster Cathedral, in the transcept of Rosslyn Chapel and at Stonehenge at the breaking of dawn and felt the incredible energy. But I’ve been most touched by the opportunities to visit the personal spiritual places of quite a few individuals close to me. There is, of course, the high Yosemite, the spiritual place of the intrepid Scottish naturalist who founded our national parks system. And the Grand Canyon, which when I peered over its rim the first time while holding tightly to the hand of my then young son, I whispered: “This must be where God lives”. There is a ridge in the lofty San Juan mountains in Colorado. There is the shore of a small lake, a knob on the elbow of a quaint river, a place revered by its owner as his spiritual place, and now referred by him simply as “Spirit Lake”. And another personal spiritual place - acres and acres of deep woods entrusted to conservancy rich with mature, natural hardwoods and rare, under-canopy plant species reminding us of what this place looked like before development. There is a bench along a lake positioned to capture the morning’s first light. There is an island, the very act of getting to which is freeing; as if you could just close your eyes, stand still as the mainland receded away and the island drew nigh. There is a beach from which both sunrise and sunset are visible – one best enjoyed with a cup of coffee, the other with a glass of wine. There is a rose garden – The Garden of Love – in an urban setting. And there is that incredibly quiet space in a nursery as you look over the edge of a crib to a closed-eye newborn baby softly breathing and you know you have been touched by the grace of God. (PLEASE CLICK ON THE TITLE ABOVE TO CONTINUE READING.)