March 17, 2013

Thin Places

Since it is St. Patrick’s Day, I’m going to stray from the given readings and talk a bit about the “thin places” of Celtic spirituality that I find so comforting here at St. Francis.

I had never heard of “thin places” until I heard Rich preach about them. In Celtic spirituality, it’s a place where the veil that separates heaven and earth is lifted and one is able to glimpse or touch the edge of heaven. There is a Celtic saying that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller.

St. Francis has an abundance of thin places. There’s the Memorial Garden, of course, whose clean simple circle invites both contemplation and community. In that place, the mystical feeling of the nearby “saints triumphant” can be felt in equal measure with the very human rustling of people trying to light candles from the cauldron at the circle’s center during a windy Easter Vigil.

And then there are assorted candles of the Wednesday night service. The thin tapers placed in the bowl of sand seem to take on something of human nature, bending and wavering here and there, but becoming even more  wonderful when they are all standing together.

Have you ever been in the parking lot, and been startled as you suddenly caught a glimpse of Jesus in the labyrinth behind St. Clare House? What a great melding of the everyday world and the world beyond!  

It seems to me that St. Francis holds many thin places not unlike those described below by the contemporary poet, Sharlande Sledge:

“Thin places,” the Celts call this space

Both seen and unseen,

Where the door between the world

And the next is cracked open for a moment

And the light is not all on the other side.


God shaped space. Holy.

Finally, on this St. Patrick’s Day I wish Rich Simpson a Happy Birthday. St. Patrick’s prayer fits the occasion:

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
 Christ behind me, Christ before me,
 Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
 Christ to comfort and restore me.

A wonderful full text of the prayer, sung and accompanied by images, may be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pLSfb_RHRw

I wish Rich much joy as his journey continues!

Julie Mankowsky