Three Worlds

The ancient Celtic saints believed that the place where sea and earth met was a "thin place."  A "thin place" is a place where earth and heaven, the visible and the invisible, the here and there intermingle.  In such places the presence of the others who dwell in the eternal might be sensed by those who lingered in the present moment and the places seen and known by all of us.     

Most who frequent the places where rushing water and waiting sand meet do not think of themselves as walking on the edge of two worlds, one seen and one unseen.  For those skeptics it might be a good thing to note that there is a massive sign there on the edge of sea and sand which speaks of the unseen possibilities.  Remember for a moment those times of sitting on the edge with feet in the sand and eyes mesmerized by the constantly moving water.  To be there in that moment is to be in all that is visible:  the sand, the water, the sky, the people around us, and over ours shoulder all we left behind us.  To look forward from that sandy spot is to see the moving surface of an invisible world full of life; fish, turtles, coral reefs, and an ocean full of living things.  On the edge of the seen and unseen, our feet, and perhaps, our spirit feel the presence of both.    

With such signs before us of an unseen world on the edge of the visible one, is it too long a leap to look upward from the rolling waters and sandy earth and know that there is all around that invisible world of the eternal where the saints who have gone before us linger with joy and wait with anticipation for us to join them there where the presence of God fills everything with overwhelming glory?  What a blessing it is for us to be on the edge where our senses and our spirits can look toward glory with such anticipation and joy!  Hallelujah!