Wondering

Our paths first crossed a little more than fifteen years ago when Glenn Haynes came to the Perry Church as the new Minister of Music.  In more recent years our separate journeys brought us to the same area where we bump into each other and touch our friendship again.  A few days ago I saw a painting on display in the lobby of a local bank entitled, "Where Two Worlds Meet."  My old friend was the artist.  It was a wonderful piece which invited the one standing in front of it to enter into the world of the painting.  Its invitation to stand and listen and experience with all five senses the place where river embraced the earth was unmistakable. 

 

If I were a wealthy patron of the arts, I would commission my friend to paint a similar work portraying the place where the visible world in which we live touches the invisible world which is surely around us.  My recent readings on Celtic spirituality speak of a strong belief that there are thin places where the eternal realm is opened to the finite earthly realm.  What I realized in the reading was that I had come to such a belief long years ago.  So many times it has seemed that I was walking here, but aware that unseen others were walking nearby.  The thin places are not in specific geographic sites.  They are all around us.  They are where we walk.

 

I have come to some awareness of this thin veil just beyond me and wondered as I saw my friend's painting how it might look through the eyes of an artist whose skills and spirit might enable transcending the world that is completely physical.  I have come to some understanding of it through my own soul's experience.  Like the heavy morning fog which shrouds and hides the earth we know is underneath it, so does this spiritual realm surely hover over us, around us, and, perhaps, even within us.