Where’s Your Thin Place?

And no, I don’t mean that time you reached your dreamed-of body weight.

I mean, as the Celts describe, the place where it feels heaven almost touches earth.

The place where your breath catches, your heart slows, and you sense the sacred. The place where you know in your bones this is who you truly are, beyond your roles and “masks.”

I’ve encountered thin places on the Scottish island of Iona, at Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country, and on wilderness hikes in the Rocky Mountains.

I’ve experienced them in moments as well:

• In lingering, laughing times around the table with family and friends.

• In the hushed holiness of my father’s hospice room.

• In spiritual direction sessions where we together sense God’s powerful, loving, guiding presence.

• In a small group where people share vulnerably, listen deeply, refocus on Jesus, and give hope.

My thinnest place is sitting with Bill on the dock at Whisper Woods Lake early in the morning, sipping coffee, watching the mist skim over the water and the rising sun roll down our trees (with our golden retrievers flashing the camera).

It’s at night when the Milky Way reflects millions of stars on the lake. It is where I hear the whisper, “All shall be well.”

We found this rural property nine years ago. It had been neglected but had hints of such beauty. We named it Whisper Woods Lake from 1 Kings 19 where the prophet Elijah ran from the evil Queen Jezebel. He was tired, afraid, confused, hungry, thirsty, and a touch grouchy.

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” . . . And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.

I Kings 19:4-7, 11-12

We built “BroomTree Cottage” by the lake a few years ago as a place to retreat, refuel, and reconnect with God and yourself. Where you can be still long enough that beyond the wind, earthquake, and fire (which blazed last year at this time!), you hear God in the quiet and gentle whisper (in Hebrew “thin silence”).

It’s hard to put words to something that feels so holy to us.

We often read Wendell Berry’s poetry as we sit by the lake. He describes what we feel when we’re there.

How to Be a Poet

(to remind myself)

By Wendell Berry

i

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

Please let me know where your thin places are—those moments and spaces where you connect with God or sense heaven is closer.