Thin Places
Randy Harris talked about the Celtic concept of “thin places” on Wednesday night — places where it seems that the gap between heaven and earth is particularly small.
I think of a place I’ve hiked several times just outside Colorado Springs . . . of Megan’s grave . . . and of a narrow strip of land in Florida where I’ve run, walked, and biked many times–a strip that has the gulf on one side and the harbor on the other. These are all places of prayer and perspective. Thin places, indeed. How about you? Any “thin places” in your life?
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Someone asked if I’ve checked out the comments on the YouTube site that Matt M. put up. Apparently it wasn’t funny to everyone.
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Ooops. Coach Belichick trying to do a bit of damage control.
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Not too late to join us for the 2007 Zoe Conference. We’ll also have the “Overflow” conference in 2008 in Fresno and Arlington. Plus, I’m looking forward to our weekend with the Downtown Church of Christ in Searcy.
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Garrison Keillor on Pavarotti’s death:
The great tenor stood and sobbed in our behalf, all of us who don’t weep so much and when we do it isn’t particularly artistic. Men, for example. Women can weep with great expressive range and tone quality — when my wife weeps, it brings tears to my eyes, especially if I’m the cause — but with men, there’s no grandeur to it at all, just some groaning and precipitation and your face turns rubbery and you sit in a dark corner until it passes.
Mine is not a tragic life that I’m aware of, though a few months ago I was trapped next to a talkative drunk at a fundraising dinner party and thought seriously about poisoning his wine and watching him fall face-first into the creme brulee. The re-election of the Current Occupant was a tragedy but such a dull, predictable one, like driving your car into a swamp and getting stuck, that nobody could possibly sing about the pain of it all.
In fact, the times I’ve wanted to plant my feet and sing in my upper register and sob in Italian have all been for the exquisite grief of being a dad. Romantic turmoil is a picnic compared to the emotional turmoil of parenting — the load of guilt, the sense of incompetence and failure, the night thoughts, the terrible scenarios that come to mind, the agony of watching your child perform in public, the fear of your bright young thing entangled with brainless self-destructive people — O God! God! God, save my child! From me and from other idiots. My little girl shoots baskets in the driveway and I get tears in my eyes, thinking of her deprived of my protection, as someday she will be. O my darling.
It’s a sweet part of growing old to see your own child grow up and take on these sorrows. My boy was a big Van Halen and Motley Crue fan and liked other hair bands and then he fell in love with a good woman and they begat two little boys and now he tunes in to Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and George Jones. Metal bands say not much at all about daddyhood and country singers say a lot, you can hear it in their voices, just like in Pavarotti’s. He died at 71, leaving one small child. This was his tragedy at the end. All that money and acclaim and a great career to look back on, but what he really wanted was ten more years to see that kid grow up. Dear God, give us more time. The heart weeps at the thought.
A secluded Alabama beach is a very thin place.
Our enclosed back porch overlooking the lake-our thin place.
I think maybe you have to be in our age group to fully get the humor out of the video. We’ve been studying Revelation and that type of writings. That video is a perfect example.
Just this past weekend my breath was taken away as I jogged/hiked at a State Park. OK, maybe it was all the exercise that did it! I discovered this place where you could hike down a bit and stand in the middle of a bunch of waterfalls. There was nobody else around, and I just worshipped.
I was in the thick of learning about heaven (new heaven and new earth), having just listened to Rick Atchley’s Pepperdine CD’s. So that was a thin-place experience I’ll always remember.
Mike, I think the thin places in my life either have been the places where I was forced out of my comfort zone and any place where I am with a group of family members giving praise and thanks to the father while being intentional about lifing each other up as well. I also had a porch when I was living in Greece where I would go outside and dance before the Lord, that was great too.
Is this talk on a website that I can hear it?
Justin – I think only our Sunday messages are podcast. I believe he’s doing some of that material at the Zoe Conference in a few weeks. You can get it from there. My life is always blessed by hearing Randy speak — but this was about as moving as anything I’ve heard from him.
I know, we’ll have a debate on whether the video is funny or not. Maybe we can get the guy who says, “Let’s get ready to Rum-bulllllll”
I loved Mike singing the classics. So glad to see it again!
Dinner tables
Soup kitchens
Delivery room on May 5th
Preaching in front of two women who always sit side-by-side on the front row. One woman lost her 25-year-old son to a tragic plane crash 1 year ago tomorrow. The other woman lost her son back in February. Every Sunday, they sit together–singing hymns, bowing together, and breaking bread.
*Eating lunch with my homeless friends in Cass Park, Detroit.
*Waking up to Kara, my wife.
*Sitting at the highest point in Edinburgh, Scotland.
*Finishing my first marathon two years ago
Upper deck of Yankee Stadium above third base.
Sitting at my Mom and Dad’s table — everyone’s there. My whole family, my brothers and their beautiful wives and all of our beautiful children. We bow our heads to pray– together– as a family in blood and in God. It’s so beautiful. Such a thin place.
We are looking forward to the blessing of having you and Zoe in Searcy!
DU
A particular campfire-ring in the Black Hills that is probably a bit overgrown right now and has an empty blue campchair sitting beside it and a black Australian border collie sniffing around, wondering where I’m at.
…But also, moments like this in a new place with my students…
grass clippings like tea leaves
Today, I’m reading the future
from yesterday
laid out in sun-blanched clumps
where mower blades have battled
these less than civil blades
and won.
This neat appearance almost argues
design as giver rather than taker,
but fastidious reason
is no creator, it offers mere pruning;
the mower has cut things short
for a season
and this grass will never come
to head, produce seed.
Above us, the Bookcliffs slice late morning,
shadow bleeding into this valley;
my students sprawl upon the
soccer field with journals
and seedling ideas riding the sharp tips
of their burrowing pens.
We hear the mower still at work.
Who can say,
“No more—
Growth stops here?”
Only the tiniest ant
working deep among
the hidden roots is safe
from the whirring
of the blades,
but, for these twenty minutes,
this young sun,
these credulous pens,
tilling naive pages,
we are all taller.
09-06-07
PS: Delete the comma after “these credulous pens” in the last stanza… sorry, I’m an English teacher…
thin places – Impact, Fortress – soup lines, homeless shelters.
Those Youtube commenters don’t have much joy, joy, joy anywhere.
My thin place, strangely enough, is the stage in our church building on Saturday nights. For a while we had a prayer meeting there every Saturday night, gathered around the stage, kneeling on the steps. Nothing was heard except for the pump of the baptistry. It was calming, serene, special. I sometimes just go there and stand behind the pulpit when I need a message from God on what to preach and how.
Some are one-time – some I’m blessed to repeat.
My babies smiling faces when they see me.
Communion with 750 singles at the SW Singles Celebration.
Shell Beach, CA – sitting on the rocks, watching the restless Pacific.
Iguassu Falls – walking at the foot of the falls on the Brazilian side, viewing them from Argentina’s side of the three rivers.
Ancient temples and churches throughout Mexico.
Opera house as Pavarotti lets gorgeous God-given gift of music flow – washing over our hearts.
Gathering with my church family, where ever that may be at any given time or place.
As one who married a beautiful lass from the churches of Christ (and glad I did) I think “Mike Cope Sings the Classics” is, well, classic! I actually know what 728B stands for. And the “thin line” is somewhere out there beyond the azure blue, beyond the skies tinted with heav’n-ly hue!
As for the You Tube thing I think it’s “funny” that we want our preachers to be entertaining and humorous, but the second someone tries to bring humor and fun into worship people bok at it. Is singing more sacred than preaching in our heritage???
At the bedside of a very sick newborn who just arrived and is trying to “go back” in spite of my teams best efforts. I’ve often felt that among the bright lights, monitors, tubes, and ventilators heaven was really close.
I think Mike singing the classics is great!
The mountains are a thin place for me. The old family country cemetery in Missouri is a thin place for me. And though I know this is probably not what you were driving at, I thought the veil separating heaven and earth was very thin as I watched Vicki’s pulse flicker to a stop. It probably sounds very strange to some to say it felt holy, but it certainly did.
McGirk, TX. The place of solitude I longed to leave as a lonely boy now has a centrifugal force pulling me there. Now in the hustle and bustle of the suburbs, there is something heavenly on that ranch–something my kids are missing. The clock ticks much more slowly there. No fast food signs, no Wal-Mart, no city lights… At night the sound of crickets and the clear, black, glowing sky. When we all get together, we play “42″ or “84″. We talk past midnight about life, then we eat shameful breakfasts in the morning. Then there’s the family cemetery on the hill where so many loved ones are buried. I go there and I weep for sorrow and for joy at what beautiful resurrection ground it will be at that last trump. Amen.
While you are reading the comments about “Mike Cope Sings the Classics”
Browse over to the BYU Chorus singing “O Thou Fount of Every Blessing”
Beautiful…I am still tearing up…Still like the “Classics” thing though…some folks just take themselves too seriously.
Mike
Thin places are varied and not often enough. It is watching the birth of a Zambian baby with Harding students here for a semester abroad and watching the intentness of the mother as she pushes without a word. It is standing by the bed of a 15 year old secondary student from Namwianga school here who has cerebral malaria and is in a coma. I am reminded of my own precious 14 year old grandson. Grateful that he is healthy and not apt to get malaria and sorrowing that this African boy, this child, has such a uncertain future.
Thin place for me is being on top of a mtn. in Colorado, turning like Julie Andrews did in the opening scene of “Sound of Music”. I feel close to God, and yet realize what a speck I am in the Universe.
Am so thrilled Zoe is coming to Downtown….”When you’re alone, & life is making you lonely, you can always go—-Downtown. When you got worries, all the noise & the hurry, seems to help I know—Downtown”. Petula Clark, mid-60’s. I think Brandon, Sheryl & the rest of the Zoe Group could open the conference with that, don’t you think?
Lee and Val, amen!
Sorry, that was me and not TimD, my husband.
Most desert places, especially if there are isolated canyons or mesas. Some of my favorite places are Big Bend NP, Guadalupe Mountains NP, the Davis Mountains of far west Texas, the four corners area. I feel a kinship with T.E. Lawrence, who, when asked why he liked the desert, said “Because it is clean.” It is interesting that many of the natural places that we would list as “thin” are the places that Native Americans have gone to for centuries for the very same reason.
My favorite thin place is Thorncrown Chapel, a non-denominational gathering place for those who just want to meditate or worship … a glass house where no one throws stones … an inner place that does not shut the outside out.
Mike will Brian McLaren be speaking at the Arlington conference?
Although I understand what Randy is saying, I tend to disagree. I think thin places are more about your inner geography than the external landscape.
Living in Abilene I often hear complaints about the lack of beauty here. That is, Abilene is not on many people’s “thin place list.” But I really think that reaction is more diagnostic of the inner topography of the person making the complaint than Abilene. I think, to be blunt, such comments portray a kind of spiritual shallowness.
I had seen the Mike Cope sings the Classics mentioned several times on this blogspot but had never gone to the video. I did today, and I just don’t understand “why”. Think about the words of these songs. I don’t doubt that the video was just meant to be funny and for people to have fun, but I don’t think we have fun by making light of what has been sacred and precious to many. We haven’t “progressed” that far, I hope.
I am thankful for the “thin places” in my life. As spiritual humans don’t you think that there are certain places we seek out to be alone with God? He lives within us and we go to Him in the dark, in the sun, in solitary places and in crowds. And of curse we see Him and feel Him in places of beauty and in places that are mundane and even unattractive. Yet–even Jesus went to a garden to be with Him, even Jesus went to the mountainside by himself to pray, Jesus went out to lonely places to pray, He went to his “certain place” (Luke 11) to pray. And to me it is a blessing to have certain thin places in my life.
Richard B., Have you ever sat in a window-seat of an airplane & gazed down/up, & not been just overwhelmed with the magnitude of HIM?
I have relatives who have lived in Abilene, & they all have commented, at one time or another, about being on a mesa near there & witnessing the amazing sunsets. That would be a “thin place” imo. Physical place/spiritual filling.
I don’t know Randy well, except to say “hi” after one of his deep, deep lessons, and the word “shallow” just doesn’t apply to him—at all.
Hi Annie,
Let me clarify. I wasn’t saying that Randy was shallow. You’re very right, Randy is one of the deepest people out there.
No, what I was pushing back against is how many people can come to correlate “thin places” with geographical beauty. That association, whenever I hear it (and you hear it a lot in Abilene) is what I’m calling shallow.
Further, “thin places” implies “thick places,” and, for theological reasons, I tend to resist carving up the world that way.
I discovered the “classics” quite by accident but thought it was hilarious. I’m a middle age COC girl who I guess, has my sense of humor. Maybe I’m a dying breed. I think more people should lighten up!
I just looked at that You Tube site again – hilarious. Some of the comments are even funnier. What I can’t believe is it has had over 20K views. I didn’t think there were that many of us left in the coc!
If a thin place is where the gap between heaven and earth seems particularly small then my life is thankfully full of thin places right now. A huge part of my heart is no longer on this earth so my spirit longs for those thin places. Mike thank you for reaching out to Bailey…she is being blessed by ACU and so many there. Now about the “classics”…loved it when I first saw it and still do. Made me laugh out loud and I need that.
There is nothing more beautiful than hearing Bono & Povarotti singing ONE as a duet. Povarotti will be missed by many, many people.