Thin Places

On my sabbatical a few years ago, my daughters and I had the chance to surf off the rugged north coast of Scotland, at a place called Farr Bay.

The water was emerald green. Sheer rocky cliffs dropped straight into the sea. Pasture land rolled right down to the shore. And the waves were powerful and well formed… nearly perfect.

I remember sitting on my board in-between sets, marveling at the beauty of God’s creation, and the gift of spending time with my daughters immersed in it all. No one on the beach. Other than the sound of breaking waves and light wind, there was a deeper silence.

The ancient Celts had a name for places like that. They called them "thin places," places where the veil between heaven and earth is at its thinnest.

John Philip Newell writes that the early Celtic Christians saw the shoreline in particular as a kind of doorway, that space "between land and sea, between known and unknown," where the seen and the unseen meet.

The psalmist must have stood somewhere like that: "More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the Lord!" (Psalm 93:4)

Maybe you have a place like that. A shoreline. A mountain trail. The wide-open plains. The quiet of a sanctuary. Early morning in the garden.

Where is your thin place?

And when was the last time you went there?

Prayer: Thank you, O God, for the places where you draw near: the shoreline and the mountaintop, the sanctuary and the garden. When we are weary, lead us back to them. Open our hearts to your presence there, and give us strength and courage for the days ahead. Amen.

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