Thin Places

While there are some people who are not drawn to the place where the waters of the ocean touch the sand of the earth, it is obviously a place which has a drawing power for many of us.  I confess to being one of those who always enjoys time at the beach.  When I was young, it was the water.  As I got older it was running along the water's edge and as I have gotten even older, the running has become walking.  Even sitting and looking at the vastness of water and sky has a power all its own.

 

We are not the first to find something mysterious and drawing about the meeting place between water and earth.  In the Celtic tradition it is regarded as a threshold place.  A threshold place is what it seems to be.  A door has a threshold.  It is a place where outside ends and inside begins, or a place where inside ends and outside begins.  When stepping through the threshold, there is a brief second when we stand in both places.  To read about Celtic spirituality is to learn that thresholds are regarded as thin places where the physical realm and the spiritual mingle in mysterious ways. 

I thought about this possibility recently as I walked the beach.  But, mostly I thought about how life is filled with more moments filled with both beginning and ending than I often realize.  Every morning's sunrise and every evening's sunset is such a moment.  Every single moment we live is potentially both an ending and a beginning moment.  We are constantly walking through thresholds.  The Celts seemed more aware of the sacred possibilities of each moment.  How different our living would be if we could live with an awareness that each moment is a sacred moment instead one through which we are to hurry so we can get to the next one.