Thin Places

There are places and times when we feel a deeper connection to all of life; past, present and future. I was once told that the Irish call them “thin places.” Births, deaths and ritualized transitions like weddings and baptisms often bring us to those thin places where we experience pain, wonder, hope and joy all at the same time. As a pastor I have had the privilege to be present when families invite me to be with them in these sacred moments.

The first memorial service I ever did for someone was at the request of the deceased’s girlfriend. When I sat down with her to talk about the service I learned that her boyfriend died in a car accident while running from the police because he was on parole and there were drugs in the car. He was on parole after serving time for setting a local church on fire to hide a robbery. When I finished the service I thought that was the strangest funeral I could ever imagine.

Not even close.

The next one was for an elderly man whose grown daughter had Down’s Syndrome. Her brother had wrapped their dad’s ashes in a gift box so as not to upset his sister. Instead, she thought the present was for her birthday and she spent most of the service begging to open it and throwing a fit when her brother wouldn’t let her.

Another time I was asked by one of three sons to preside at his dad’s funeral. About half-way through the service, at the conclusion of the sermon, the eldest brother stood up and said, “Dad didn’t believe in this bullshit but he loved his beer. We’re takin’ this celebration down to the bar.” And they did.

At another funeral the cement vault wouldn’t go all the way into the grave. The funeral directors and I spent 15 minutes jumping up and down on the vault to get it to settle below the surface after the family had gone back to the church for lunch.

And it would have been nice if someone had told me that when a person dies it doesn’t always happen like it does on TV and in the movies. Involuntary muscle contractions sometimes cause the lungs to gasp for air for up to two minutes after death. Nobody wants to hear the grown man in the clerical collar scream like a little girl in the peaceful and solemn moments after grandma passes away.

I’ve presided at weddings where the rings were left in another room and more at more than one where the Unity Candle wouldn’t light or ring bearers and flower girls refused to walk into the church. At one wedding, the bride looked at me during the vows and I thought she was going to run. At an outdoor ceremony the Unity Sand was missing so the bride’s aunt walked to the parking lot to retrieve it and then tried to sneak it into place behind me during the service while everyone watched what she was doing instead of paying attention to the couple as they said their vows.

I have seen grandparents act like paparazzi, standing in front of the congregation with cameras flashing to capture the exact moment when a grandchild is baptized. I’ve seen parents of baptized infants stand like stone statues while an older child distracts everyone, exploring the front of the church.

You might think that these are not sacred thin places but they are. We long for moments when we experience the eternal. But even when things go exactly as planned we still bring our humanity with us into those moments. Sometimes our fear and insecurity cause us to balk in the presence of the eternal. Sometimes our excitement and joy can’t be contained. But most of the time it’s simply because we are human and we have no choice but to bring our humanity into these thin places.

The fact that our human foibles can’t ruin these thin places makes me think that perhaps there are way more of them than we realize. Maybe we encounter thin places every day and we just miss them because we are too caught up in the drama of the world around us.

What thin places have you experienced? Will you run into one today?