This blog post is not about weight loss – at least not physical weight loss.
The Celts use the term “thin places” to describe moments when heaven and earth seem to blend. They are places and times when we feel completely connected to What’s Holy – where we release fear, anger, confusion and anything weighing us down.
Not too far from my NC home is a beach called Bird Island – even though it’s not really an islan
d anymore. Tucked away in the dunes of Bird Island is a mailbox with “KINDRED SPIRIT” on it. The mailbox is filled with journals – some full, some waiting to be filled. Legend has it that the KS mailbox has been there since ’81.
Thousands visit the KS mailbox each year to leave their own messages or to simply read the messages of others.
It’s holy ground. It’s a magical place. It’s a thin place.
If you’d like to read more about the KS mailbox, visit this site.
What are some of your favorite thin places?
Lisa’s Cheap Therapy blog 
Not sure my ‘thin place’ is actually a single place…it’s more like a moment that resonates within me. Like most people today I’m always busy with something…whether it’s family, work or whatever. But every so often some force stops me and I know I need to listen and take the moment in.
The other day I was working and rushing around the house. My daughter was watching tv and for some reason…amongst all that was going on…I heard this one statement on the tv….’love is a verb’. I thought it was beautiful and obviously it was something I needed to hear.
Then another time just recently I was sitting and waiting in the doctors office so I picked up a magazine to kill time. I flipped it open to somewhere in the middle and in the center of the very first page I looked this statement was written in bold…’No matter how small you might think yourself to be you have something huge to offer the world.’
So my ‘thin places’ happen in ‘everyday places’.
Thanks for sharing your ‘thin place’, Lisa! If I can get down that way this summer I’ll have to look for this mail box. I’m sure I’d love it!
wOw, Jane! thanks so much for sharing your thin place moments. playing off your “love is a verb” thin moment – maybe, we can remember that “thin is a verb”, too. we can Be Thin by simply paying attention FOR thin moments. YES!
hope you can make it to the KS mailbox. YOU WOULD LOVE IT!
Ditto on Jane’s comments….many of my thin places occur in everyday life. They’re all around us, really, if you just slow down long enough to observe them.
But I have experienced thin places in specific locations as well. One of my favorites is the Abbey of Sant’ Antimo in Tuscany. Lendon and I visited this holy place about two years ago. Monks still live/work there. The actual structure dates back to like, the late 700s or something equally ancient. It is a marvelous, holy, silent place.
Unbelievable!
oooooooooooooo Pickett,
THANKS for taking us with you and Lendon the Abbey of Sant’ Antimo in Tuscany. Holy, indeed.
sometimes when i witness the unbelievable, i just chalk it up to – wOw!
i like to believe in the unbelievable .
My thin place is a run-off scar in the desert west of Albuquerque. I was homeless and having a long bout of self pity for all that was missing in my life. As I sat before my fire gnawing on a rib I looked up to see an owl perched on the pile of dry sticks across the fire from me. I tossed the remains of my rib to it and turned for another. “All you give me is the fat and bome.” I heard. When i looked there was a wizened old Indian man squatting where the owl had been. He gnawed on the bone until it was quite bare and tossed it into the fire. “There is no hole in you that must be filled.” With that he returned to his owl form and flew off into the night. That vision stays with me and its message influences my daily life in many ways. For a time I thought that I needed that place to feel it but I have learned that I do not need the scar in the sand hills to feel the peace that I felt on that night.
“There is no hole in you that must be filled.”
wOw and thanks Jim – for not only sharing this sacred experience, but for all the ways you live into the lesson.
deep and humble bows.
I’ve actually done some blogging and reading on this myself. I love Tracy Balzer’s book on Thin Places. She defines thin places as an atmosphere. I think we can be thin places, when in the right mood and right relationship with God.
oooooo David, couldn’t agree more about Tracy Balzer’s Thin Places. am SO grateful you mentioned it!
i send you & yours all that is good and THIN.