When a person gets into blogging, it is amazing what one learns. I did everything wrong and learned by trial and error. I will be closing down this site on Monday but, in the meantime, need to use it to do my daily study. Nothing personal will appear on it about old family stories, etc. for it will be geared more to people who share common interest about things theological and I am finding more of them every day and learning from them.
So, to continue with my research on "Thin Places", I have found Charles Foster's book to be a jumping off place. It activated my mind. What are these thin places where one meets God more easily. Other bloggers and authors about this subject who I find interesting:
Rev. Dean Snyder
Sylvia Maddox
Mark Roberts
Mindie Burgoyne --Ireland's Celtic "thin places". When I was in Ireland, I wish I had known about this. I will check out also the new book I just ordered about North American sites. I also want to find the picture I made in Ireland and check my camera and itinerary for other sites.
Why do you want to go to "thin places?" Mindy Burgoyne, excellent writer but don't know about credentials --seminary and the like--writes in a blog called "When God is Silent." A thin place is a place on earth where the veil between this physical world we experience with our five senses and the eternal world is "thin." The eternal world is more near. These "thin" places were not made thin by you or me--or anyone else. They are inherently thin, which is a mystery. There is a cosmic, mystical quality to the place itself that transcends the senses. The physical world and the Otherworld (the world of the Divine Presence) are knitted together.
Karl E. Peters, Unitarian Society of Hartford--strange source for me brings in the idea of Marcus Borg and his thoughts. I need to check and see if I don't own Borg's book - recommended by Andy Pratt. Peters says that Borg says that "thin places" is more than one way a person moves from closed to open heart. One of them is encounters with thin places.
It is a Celtic Christian metaphor for coming in contact with the sacred, which is present all around us, but which is hidden from us.
He also quotes Teilhard de Chardin, who called this the "divine milieu" the divine holy environment. It's always there, but in a few instances, in thin places, it begins to become manifest in our lives more clearly. People, rituals may become thin places so can small children, and places of worship.
Just called Bev Hickam who will go to lunch with me tomorrow and we can talk about thin places in New Mexico. Also call up de Chardin and check out divine milieu and thin places.
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