Today I was grateful for the “thin places” in life.  No, i’m to talking about diet centers or workout gyms!  I’m talking about a whole different definition of the word “thin”.  “Thin places” is a phrase used by the Irish to describe the places and times in our lives when the separation  between this world and the next is very thin.   It is those places and moments in our lives when we have a real sense of the presence of God. There’s an old Celtic saying that says heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places, the distance is even less .  For some of you that may sound far fetched.  But for this Celtic woman, it makes perfect sense.

These deep days of winter here in the Hudson Valley/ Berkshires are thin places for me.  I’m not sure if it is the quiet, the starkness of the landscape, or the desire to hunker down and turn inward on these cold days.  But I definitely experience God in the silence of these days.   It’s not an exuberant experience of God.  It’s a silent knowing that I am not alone, that there is a presence here with me in the cold and the quiet actively leading me, loving me.

Driving through the countryside today, I was filled with gratitude for the silence and the Presence in the midst of it all.  And grateful that the wonder of life and of God is so beyond just what we can see and hear and touch.  Sometimes it takes the stillness of these days to recognize that.

Where are your “thin places”?