Month: February 2020

My grandfather, John Fitzgibbon, was proud of being Irish. His joke was that the family name meant “son of a tailless monkey”. We laugh about it but the actual truth is that this is how Irish people were depicted in the 1800s. From that Irish heritage, however, is an understanding of what the Celtic Christians referred to as “the thin places”. These were always places where God and people met, where one or the other broke through into experience.

In his book, The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg made the important point that worship is intended to create a “thin place”, a deep sense of the Sacred. I like this idea, that worship is about opening a place, a portal if you will, through which the Light of Grace can shine upon us and we can bask in that deep and abiding love.

I never really thought of it that way, but it fits. And, it does not have to be in a church. For Thomas Merton, it was a street corner in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. For me, it has been a few places, one a very beautiful valley, north of the town of Cong, in Ireland, on a misty day. Here is my point, where is your thin place? Where has it been?

What is more, here are two challenges: make where you worship a thin place and become a thin place for others. I am asked often why I garden, landscape, build decks and love flowers. I have subconsciously known this answer: I am creating a thin place for me, my family and anyone who wants to come to visit. I tell people who come to work on the house or who are neighbors that they are welcome to come and sit on the deck, they don’t need permission, just come on. I also tell them if I see them there, I will know they needed a moment, a thin place where they have to be nothing but present.

TMM

Back in the day……I love saying that only because my college students say it often like they are old. At 18 to 22, they have no real back in the day. Back in the day, now almost 50 years ago, the Doobie Brothers had a song, “Listen to the music”. The lyrics aren’t fancy but the tune and the idea are catchy. They serve to remind me that a joyful heart makes a difference.

Recently, the writer, Terry Hershey discussed the whole idea of listening for the music, the music that is life itself if you allow yourself the silence to listen closely. All of life is rhythm. Thomas Merton said, “You fool, it is life that makes you dance, have you forgotten?” Merton could hear the music. All of life vibrates, that much is clear. It is even discussed that we vibrate at the rate that is the note “C”. Apparently, casinos know this and tune the bells and tones to that note in the casino.

But maybe the Doobie Brothers were on to something. Maybe we should be listening to the music. Maybe that flow of music is life itself. Okay, not necessarily their song but the music of Life itself. That note of “C” that we are all vibrating at, together……this very moment. I believe Merton was right, it is the music of life that makes us dance. It is the very vibration of life that moves us, keeps us flowing. I should use this phrase here: does that resonate with you?

I confess to not having listened more closely to hear the song of life. The world around me, around all of us, distracts us from hearing that gentle song, keeps us from vibrating at that common frequency within us all. That frequency that is Life itself. I think I will go now, sit on the deck and listen to the Lifesong the birds are singing and perhaps dance a step or two to the song within me, on that frequency we call God.\

TMM