I have to say that I worked in the health care industry for years but never quite heard it put this away (in terms of being a thin place) but I love that. It fits.
I always find the Holy Island of Lindisfarne a ‘thin place’, but I’ll never forget the closeness of God one night when my kids were very young and I was so tired. I still had to make dinner, do the baths and the bedtime routine. I was standing at my hob stirring bolognaise sauce when I felt God’s presence at my back, felt his,hands on my shoulders and heard an audible voice asking ‘what was for dinner tonight’? The overactive imagination of a sleep deprived mum? Perhaps, but it made me feel seen, valued and loved by my creator.
I don't think that was an overactive imagination at all! What a powerful, ordinary thin place. It's amazing that prepping for dinner in the kitchen can be made holy by God's presence!
As a young pastor, the hospital was a place of fear and anxiety for me. I had to take deep breaths to enter the room and be ready for whatever I encountered. But it really shifted when I had surgery with complications and woke on a respirator. I've hovered near death a couple of times, and made some important life decisions sitting in a hospital gown. It is indeed a thin place.
Todd, thanks for sharing more of your powerful story here. Have you written about it? I'd love to read more about that experience for you (perhaps a future Cultivating Soul post?)
What a wonderful piece and poem! Thin places and thresholds are more often surprises than sought. My own hospitalization was just as you say. That place of thinness between life and death was peopled by folk guarding the thresholds of despair and guiding to the open doors of hope. Like the nurse when I was close to terror who held me in his arms and said “I will not let you fall or fail.” The grace of God abounds indeed. Thank you Christine
Hospitals have been thin places for me, as have my homes and moments at sunrise or sunset when my conversations with God are rich with connection. The common ground is I was alone. I treasured being alone at times because others were in my home: my husband and my mother. They are gone now, and I still treasure alone time because it is a thin place where I always feel God’s presence.
That is a really good point about needing to be alone to fully appreciate a thin place. I suspect it's different for everyone, but I'm with you in finding the solitude especially holy.
Christine, it is so soothing to listen to your voice. And to be gifted yet another story from your rich work life. I love this image of the hospital as a thin place. It surely has been for me every time. Giving birth, staying with a sick child, undergoing emergency care myself. So thank you for your beautiful poem. I hope you will not find a poem next time either and have to write it yourself 😇. What a beautiful song of thin places you created!
Glad to know it's worth recording for you to be able to listen. I wind up ad-libbing here are there in the voice overs, so listeners get extra bits (like the authorship of the poem!)
It sounds like there are some future Cloister Notes posts about your thin experiences!
I have heard the term “ thin spaces” but did not know the meaning! Thank you! Have I experienced them - yes! When my mom passed away a year or so ago, I kept saying, over the several weeks she was in long term care, that the time with her was achingly sad, but , surprisingly to me, very beautiful! And, although I don’t think any of my sisters felt this way, I never felt closer to her, and was so moved by the whole experience. I will eventually write a post about this, but it was definitely a thin space! So much of what you write about here, is when we are experiencing “awe”. The caveat that you put forth saying that these beautiful places, scenes, are not necessarily closer to God, but you posit, that maybe the “lovely unhurriedness” lets us sit and ponder and receive, perhaps, the messages presented to us. I just love that. Spot on!
Thank you for writing about your experience of a thin place and glad I could introduce you to the term. I am struck by how death can be both devastating but also bring moments of tender joy and solace. I look forward to reading your future piece about the threshold experience of being at your mother's side as she journeyed toward death.
Oh thanks for sharing your beautiful writing on this, it has broadened my own understanding to hear it from your experience. I am moved by the thin place you found with your mother in her suffering. It is a potent reminder that thin-places don't have to be locale specific, but more about our connection to the holy.
Also, are you Presbyterian too? I chuckled when I read your reference to Montreat and Mo Ranch, I've not been to either yet, but am overdue for a trip!
My most memorable experience of a thin place was the third morning of the Camino Santiago out of Porto, Portugal. I was walking alone on a trail leading into a peaceful valley with everything that I needed in my backpack. The sun had not yet risen above the hills, but it was bathing them in a rosy glow. I tend to be a stiff upper lip old boomer, but I have to confess that I had tears in my eyes. It felt as if God had put me in the spot I most needed to be.
This is such a beautiful piece. I had never heard of thin places before, but it's perfect. I think of all the times when I feel a closer connection to God and it's not always the most beautiful, but the most serene. I always feel that way by the ocean, especially off-season when there's almost no one on the beach.
I'm glad you liked it! Speaking of beautiful and affirming, I keep meaning to tell you I got your book the other week and it is all of those things! Such a phenomenal resource!
Oh my word. I… am speechless. Thank you so much for your support - I cannot express how much that means to me. I hope you know when your book(s)/journals enter the world, I’ll be first in line.
I plan on taking some pics with your book and doing a note on it for others to hear about! And thanks for commiting to my supporting my work, although it might be a long time before I publish anything! 😂
Hospitals can be scary places filled with apprehension and fear. Thank you, Christine, for gently reminding us that it's in these moments where we can encounter God afresh and anew. That the hours can be filled with learning and hope and comfort. Thank you for your work, your ministry - there and here.
Christine, once again you've put beautiful words to something I experienced but could not quite articulate in my past days working in the hospital ICU. Thank you :)
Oh, this is beautiful writing . . . love those thin places and what they draw out of me . .."a lovely un-hurriedness" . . . what a great way to say it!
You know, the South of France is a thin place for me . . . the rippling light on the Mediterranean is the most holy thing I've ever seen . . . especially at sunrise.
I have to say that I worked in the health care industry for years but never quite heard it put this away (in terms of being a thin place) but I love that. It fits.
Thanks Amanda, I'm not sure if many claim the hospital to be a thin place (sometimes I'm heretical), but I think it can totally qualify.
By the way, you wrote a lovely poem. You’re a poet, even if you don’t know it 😉.
Shhh, don't tell anyone! 😂
🤣🤣🤣
I always find the Holy Island of Lindisfarne a ‘thin place’, but I’ll never forget the closeness of God one night when my kids were very young and I was so tired. I still had to make dinner, do the baths and the bedtime routine. I was standing at my hob stirring bolognaise sauce when I felt God’s presence at my back, felt his,hands on my shoulders and heard an audible voice asking ‘what was for dinner tonight’? The overactive imagination of a sleep deprived mum? Perhaps, but it made me feel seen, valued and loved by my creator.
I don't think that was an overactive imagination at all! What a powerful, ordinary thin place. It's amazing that prepping for dinner in the kitchen can be made holy by God's presence!
As a young pastor, the hospital was a place of fear and anxiety for me. I had to take deep breaths to enter the room and be ready for whatever I encountered. But it really shifted when I had surgery with complications and woke on a respirator. I've hovered near death a couple of times, and made some important life decisions sitting in a hospital gown. It is indeed a thin place.
Todd, thanks for sharing more of your powerful story here. Have you written about it? I'd love to read more about that experience for you (perhaps a future Cultivating Soul post?)
What a wonderful piece and poem! Thin places and thresholds are more often surprises than sought. My own hospitalization was just as you say. That place of thinness between life and death was peopled by folk guarding the thresholds of despair and guiding to the open doors of hope. Like the nurse when I was close to terror who held me in his arms and said “I will not let you fall or fail.” The grace of God abounds indeed. Thank you Christine
Oh what a powerful moment of the nurse giving spiritual care to the spiritual care practioner and teacher who has cared for so many!
Hospitals have been thin places for me, as have my homes and moments at sunrise or sunset when my conversations with God are rich with connection. The common ground is I was alone. I treasured being alone at times because others were in my home: my husband and my mother. They are gone now, and I still treasure alone time because it is a thin place where I always feel God’s presence.
That is a really good point about needing to be alone to fully appreciate a thin place. I suspect it's different for everyone, but I'm with you in finding the solitude especially holy.
Christine, it is so soothing to listen to your voice. And to be gifted yet another story from your rich work life. I love this image of the hospital as a thin place. It surely has been for me every time. Giving birth, staying with a sick child, undergoing emergency care myself. So thank you for your beautiful poem. I hope you will not find a poem next time either and have to write it yourself 😇. What a beautiful song of thin places you created!
Glad to know it's worth recording for you to be able to listen. I wind up ad-libbing here are there in the voice overs, so listeners get extra bits (like the authorship of the poem!)
It sounds like there are some future Cloister Notes posts about your thin experiences!
Thanks for this lovely piece
Thanks for reading Bishop!
I have heard the term “ thin spaces” but did not know the meaning! Thank you! Have I experienced them - yes! When my mom passed away a year or so ago, I kept saying, over the several weeks she was in long term care, that the time with her was achingly sad, but , surprisingly to me, very beautiful! And, although I don’t think any of my sisters felt this way, I never felt closer to her, and was so moved by the whole experience. I will eventually write a post about this, but it was definitely a thin space! So much of what you write about here, is when we are experiencing “awe”. The caveat that you put forth saying that these beautiful places, scenes, are not necessarily closer to God, but you posit, that maybe the “lovely unhurriedness” lets us sit and ponder and receive, perhaps, the messages presented to us. I just love that. Spot on!
Thank you for writing about your experience of a thin place and glad I could introduce you to the term. I am struck by how death can be both devastating but also bring moments of tender joy and solace. I look forward to reading your future piece about the threshold experience of being at your mother's side as she journeyed toward death.
I am captivated by your musing on thin places, a theme I have embraced in my writing about navigating my path of profound loss. Wanted to share this one: https://elainegantzwright.com/2012/11/17/penetrating-thin-places/
Oh thanks for sharing your beautiful writing on this, it has broadened my own understanding to hear it from your experience. I am moved by the thin place you found with your mother in her suffering. It is a potent reminder that thin-places don't have to be locale specific, but more about our connection to the holy.
Also, are you Presbyterian too? I chuckled when I read your reference to Montreat and Mo Ranch, I've not been to either yet, but am overdue for a trip!
My most memorable experience of a thin place was the third morning of the Camino Santiago out of Porto, Portugal. I was walking alone on a trail leading into a peaceful valley with everything that I needed in my backpack. The sun had not yet risen above the hills, but it was bathing them in a rosy glow. I tend to be a stiff upper lip old boomer, but I have to confess that I had tears in my eyes. It felt as if God had put me in the spot I most needed to be.
Peter, I remember we talked aout that on your podcast! That is on my list of places I'd love to
go. Such an iconc thin place, so full of transformative meaning.
This is such a beautiful piece. I had never heard of thin places before, but it's perfect. I think of all the times when I feel a closer connection to God and it's not always the most beautiful, but the most serene. I always feel that way by the ocean, especially off-season when there's almost no one on the beach.
Definitely serenity over beauty! Also, as you mention isolation and water are a powerful combo for me too!
This was beautiful and affirming. TY for sharing w us.
I'm glad you liked it! Speaking of beautiful and affirming, I keep meaning to tell you I got your book the other week and it is all of those things! Such a phenomenal resource!
Oh my word. I… am speechless. Thank you so much for your support - I cannot express how much that means to me. I hope you know when your book(s)/journals enter the world, I’ll be first in line.
I plan on taking some pics with your book and doing a note on it for others to hear about! And thanks for commiting to my supporting my work, although it might be a long time before I publish anything! 😂
That is so kind, and they say patience is a virtue… I’m sticking around!! 😆
💕
Hospitals can be scary places filled with apprehension and fear. Thank you, Christine, for gently reminding us that it's in these moments where we can encounter God afresh and anew. That the hours can be filled with learning and hope and comfort. Thank you for your work, your ministry - there and here.
It is such a paradox that both can be true. It can be an intensely scary place and an intensely refelctive one!
Christine, once again you've put beautiful words to something I experienced but could not quite articulate in my past days working in the hospital ICU. Thank you :)
Thanks Beth Anne. It warms my heart to know you had similar experiences in your ICU work in a different discipline!
Oh, this is beautiful writing . . . love those thin places and what they draw out of me . .."a lovely un-hurriedness" . . . what a great way to say it!
You know, the South of France is a thin place for me . . . the rippling light on the Mediterranean is the most holy thing I've ever seen . . . especially at sunrise.
I'm so glad you are going to be living in your thin place soon! And isn't there something so magical about water and sunrises?