"Our walls of division do not rise all the way to heaven." (St. Philaret of Moscow)
"For all that has been: Thanks! For all that is yet to come: Yes!" (Dag Hammarskold)
The Celtic mythology speaks of 'thin places,' places where the separation between earth and heaven is a mere whisper-thin veil of perception, and there is very little dividing the place or moment from the Lord and life beyond. We each have those thin places in our lives, or have experienced those moments where the veil, separating our physical reality and our sense of something deeper, is felt. There were those moments with infant Grace, all cleaned up on her changing table, as we lingered, my glasses off, my eyes holding hers,watching each other until we had fallen into another space and timeless time. Although I left for Canada when she was only 10 months old, the first thing she did when we returned months later was to reach up and take my glasses off and in that gesture, return us both to that fragment of eternity in our gaze.
The first time I remember this happening to me was after my brother's death, when his presence felt so very very close that I felt I could SEE him if only if only that wispy ephemeral veil of soul fog would clear. I have felt on walks in sacred places that at any moment, I could step beyond that veil, right out of this lifetime, and all would be revealed. What that 'all' might be, I have no idea. But at those times, I would have been perfectly content to leave this earthly life, bound by all of its constrictions and details and mysteries, and step right on over, dying 'unconfused' as the Buddhists say.
When we hike Helliwell Park on Hornby Island, I am blessed with those same feelings. Last week we walked through the forest on a cushion of soft wet mulch, stepping over the occasional banana slug on the trail, as we are dwarfed by red cedars. Ferns held the noise of the world in their tiny fronds, and we relished the cottony quiet. It was hard to believe, as we walked out of the forest and along the cliffs above the water, that anything else was real. Often on our walks, we watch eagles or turkey vultures or hawks on air currents, circling overhead. A tiny patch of cloud becomes a rainbow bubble, gently shape-shifting on an underbelly of grey sky. The only noise is the sound of the gravel beneath our shoes, and a very distant boat motor. I spied an enormous sea lion on a large rock below us, stranded by the outgoing tide, her mottled skin bearing the marks of her encounters with life. Michael thinks she can just throw herself back into the water. I wonder that she may need to wait for a high tide escape. She is clearly nervous as we watch, but makes no move from her perch. We move along, giving up the opportunity of a photo shot in order to put her at ease, and finished our walk in silence, always reluctant to leave.
Now, days later, a pretend rain falls as I leave for my walk, a mist that hasn't quite graduated to a drizzle, bathing the landscape and making the streets glisten. The fog drapes a grey curtain along the curve of coastline in Rathtrevor, the Douglas firs standing tall next to the rocky seashore, hinting at the dark interior of the forest. A low-growing evergreen shrub by the side of the trail is a pincushion with drops of water clinging to the needles. I take off my glasses to peer at one tiny shimmery wet globe getting fuller and heavier, reflecting more and more of this mystical numinous gift of a world. It suddenly releases, and the whole world seems to float slowly and forever in a bubble to the ground, splashing its graces over the parched earth. A baby sea lion barks piteously and a raven flies overhead, her throaty cry filling the air; they call me back from my reverie, and into the world of here and now.
Suddenly the dead and dying branches of the woods come to life, with prisms of clear raindrops decorating their otherwise grey-brown barrenness. In this moment, the shriveled twigs in the last performance of their season find purpose. The forest is bedazzled with millions of dew-lights hung from every leaf, needle and frond, tiny crystals that even the fog cannot dim. This does not seem like a thin place at all, but a rich full experience and expression of the wonder of being and breathing and standing in a joy and gratitude so great that there is nothing to do but turn slowly and take it all in. Breathe. Smile.
When Brett was 15 years old, we planned his first lengthy trip away from home. He was going to Germany, to Italy, to Medjugorge with some of his high school drama club members, under the watchful supervision of his teacher and some other adults. For weeks, he was pissy and sullen around the house, for seemingly no reason. It suddenly occurred to me that, as excited as he was about going, he was also sad about leaving. In our quirky and wryly amusing human way, it is often easier to express anger, then to feel and express the depths of grief and pain. My friend's words of last night came back to me as I walked this morning: "You have three weeks left." My petty annoyances and short patience with Michael yesterday reveal themselves as the grieving that is already unfolding as our time here gets shorter.
But I am here, still - as my t-shirt says - "on Island time," and filled with blessed awareness. I walk and see Rathtrevor with new eyes, see configurations of trees and hear complexity of sounds I never noticed before. I think of my friend, Cris, dying with Aids, saying that he had never lived so vibrantly before.
These thin places are our Muses, inspiring us, and speaking to the Soul of that space where "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love." Our Muses must ultimately be transformative, drawing us into the Love, with the whisper of rain, a gentle cool wind, a word of encouragement, a sweet embrace, a timeless gaze.
There are clues here and now, that tell us over and over that we are One in that Love, sharing the thin places, praying in our own way, whether it's in a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, a chair at home or in a Church, or, as Brett told me when he returned from his trip where his class-mates were all in a chapel and he wandered the deeply wooded hills outside, it can be in a forest in Germany. We all worship at the same altar, ultimately; we worship the Divine within each of us because, as William Willimon wrote, "Love is not a stupid unwillingness to look at the world as it is. It is the recognition that, because the world is as it is, nothing less than love will do." (William H. Willimon)
The sea lions are quiet in Rathtrevor now, the raven has flown away. There are only droplets losing their battle with gravity, drumming the dried leaves on the forest floor and creating a soft percussion to the pianissimo waves, a Divine chant harmonizing with the eternal and timeless chorus of Life itself.
"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard," Winnie the Pooh says in Milne's classic story. My tears, of awe and wonder and joy and gratitude, mingle with the gently falling rain. Three more weeks. I am so very blessed.
YAY GOD
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