There are places in this world where it seems we need only to raise an open palm if we wish to touch the face of God. They are called thin places.
In thin places, love, healing and redemption are near, and we experience a “knowing” about life and death that at other times eludes us. In thin places, the hand of the Holy lifts from our eyes the gossamer veil that separates us from those we love.
Thin places break open our hearts, inspire us to write, sing, dance, or merely to be still with God. Some are marked with stones placed by previous pilgrims to proclaim the ground as holy. Some are on heaven-kissed hilltops or in the shadow of an ancient tree. One poet found a thin place on a moonlit dune by the sea where prayers are as numerous as grains of sand and sea oats sway on the breath of the spirit.
In thin places, love, healing and redemption are near, and we experience a “knowing” about life and death that at other times eludes us. In thin places, the hand of the Holy lifts from our eyes the gossamer veil that separates us from those we love.
Thin places break open our hearts, inspire us to write, sing, dance, or merely to be still with God. Some are marked with stones placed by previous pilgrims to proclaim the ground as holy. Some are on heaven-kissed hilltops or in the shadow of an ancient tree. One poet found a thin place on a moonlit dune by the sea where prayers are as numerous as grains of sand and sea oats sway on the breath of the spirit.
OPENING ACT
For Tara by her grandmother
Floating painlessly above sand dunes
she picks a star from the heavens
places it in her hair.
She dances – arabesques, pirouettes, tour jetes.
Crabs click castanets.
Fish swish tails like bows
on a thousand violins.
Shells clang cymbals,
and sea oats wave batons.
She sees her family sleeping,
throws a kiss across the waves,
understands that the ribbon of love
connecting her heart with theirs
will one day erase tears.
a golden path on a velvet sea.
To choirs of angels,
applaud of saints,
She dances with joy into eternity.
Estelle Darrow Rice
Reflections:
Celtic saying: Heaven and earth are only three feet apart. In thin places that distance is even smaller.
Revelations 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
-Do I agree with this statement: "There are thin places in this world."
-Have I experienced a thin place? If so, where was it? What was my experience? How did it affect me?
-Are there words of consolation that I have found helpful or meaningful during difficult times in my life? What are they?
-Do I agree with this statement: "There are thin places in this world."
-Have I experienced a thin place? If so, where was it? What was my experience? How did it affect me?
-Are there words of consolation that I have found helpful or meaningful during difficult times in my life? What are they?
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