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Thin Places —————————— Where Connection Happens

The first step in recognizing the dimensions of our inner world is to become more sensitive to places outside ourselves where the veil between this world and the next is lifted for a moment. These are “thin places,” a term attributed to Celtic monks who arrived at stark, rocky, windswept islands off the coast of Ireland and Scotland in the sixth century. They spent their years there in isolation copying manuscripts of the Bible and other texts, essentially saving western civilization and Christianity in the centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

Those monks described their stony and cold island homes as thin places, where the distance between heaven and earth shrinks, where time and eternity embrace. A thin place has its own energy and power that isn’t easily described. It may be possible to get a glimpse of what one’s life is all about there, and experience awe in what your senses are discovering. You could be in nature, but it feels like a cathedral, it feels holy, set apart. Your heart might beat a little faster, and you feel in the presence of something bigger than yourself.

According to the monks, “Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.”

This Is Living Now

For many people, places like Montana de Oro, Big Sur, and Yosemite are thin places. They provide beauty and peace, but they also pierce our souls with their heavenly glory. That’s when you know you’re in a thin place.

Where’s yours?