“So, how do you know you’re in a thin place?” people ask me.
“When the earth starts talking to me,” I explain.
“Oh.”
The ancient Celtics regarded everything created to be sacred, to be holy, to be inherently good. Highly revered natural settings were named thin places and treated as spiritual sanctuaries. The veil between life and death, good and evil, the seen and unseen, was lifted so that the mystery of the invisible world was revealed in these places.
For me, St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California is a thin place. An oasis in the middle of the Mojave desert is home to a community of Benedictine monks. My wife and I participate in weekend silent retreats there hosted by the monks and guided by my spiritual direction mentors. No talking is the rule for the weekend, with the hope that holding community silence together will lead to personal spiritual insight. This thin place never disappoints. Each time I visit I leave with my life indelibly changed.
Early Saturday morning in the desert is cold with no wind. The Joshua trees silhouette the stark backdrop like soldiers frozen in time. There is no movement, no scurrying, no slithering, there is stillness, calm, peace. My first few breaths are short, cold against my throat, cold within my lungs. My legs need warmth, need movement, need more time to get going. I finally reach stride, fluid steps, in proper cadence matching efficient breathing. I’m thinking this run will be as flowing and automatic as I had anticipated.
My mistake.
I heard it. No one else on earth heard it, but I know I did. The silent yuccas, the mute Joshuas, and the speechless sage are voiceless. Glancing over my shoulder, I see no one.
No one there says, ”What do you mean when you say you are holding him in prayer?”
“What more could I do?” I defend.
No one knows I am voicing an excuse to hide the admission of embarrassment.
A cascade of slideshow images hijacks my thoughts. Men, women, children, babies in sepia tones scream in terror or cry out in pain. With each scream, with each cry, I am forced to hold that pain, hold the terror, hold the disbelief. I cannot tell if they are Palestinian or Israeli, they are only innocents.
No one says, “Look! Look! Look into their eyes, look into their souls. Hold their pain, hold the pain within your heart.”
I remember the first week of October, lying in bed recovering from COVID. Scrolling through my phone, I came across my running friend’s Instagram story; I stopped scrolling. Overwhelmed with emotion, he was recounting the recent Middle East events. He agonized over the mind-numbing inhumanity of the surprise attacks that had just occurred in Israel. I remember in an earlier conversation he had shared with me how his Jewish identity had been galvanized in childhood by listening to litanies about the Diaspora, the Holocaust, and all the other atrocities unleashed upon the Jews. Listening then to the visceral angst in his voice on the trail, the pain had been so real I couldn’t help but feel it myself. And when his emotional outpouring on Instagram overwhelmed me, I countered with painless dismissiveness:
“I am holding you in prayer.”
“Thank you, Steve.”
And just like that, my perfunctory thoughts and prayers transported me away from sincere connection to a place of safe apathy. I don’t like admitting my relief at that moment. I thought I had let this incident go, letting it disappear into the vastness of lost connection.
The thin place wanted to change the ending to this story.
The images kept coming and coming. My head, my shoulders, my chest felt a growing physical weight. My rhythmic breathing became short and shallow and my easy, flowing stride became choppy. I was no longer running on flat desert terrain but struggling up a rocky hill of emotional distress.
No one was relentless. The thin revelation was real; the images would not stop, the pain and terror would not stop, and holding all of that weight got heavier and heavier. I was four miles into an eight mile run and I could not focus on anything else. Choking on sobs revealed a truth I had known for years. Crying makes running nearly impossible.
I composed myself after a couple of miles, but strangely, the tears did not stop. My friend had said he found solace and peace by going to the temple and mourning with those there. Listening to the readings, singing familiar hymns, speaking words of courage and promise together as a community, bound them together as one in battle-worn hope. Eyes closed, singing, praying, holding peace, holding hope together as one, with the knowledge that they are all beloved. Tears of joy filled my eyes when I realized they were holding each other in the truest meaning of the word; they were loving each other.
No one relented and the image show was relegated to memory. The familiar Joshuas, the ever-present yuccas and wild sage restored normalcy in the warmth and light of the sunrise. Running became just running and thoughts became just thoughts.
I heard the voices beyond the borders of the thin place, beyond the dimensions they speak from. The thin place embraces me with patience, always speaking from a place of love.
The thin place whispered, “To hold is to love.”
Wow. This is really fine.
Thank you Steve. Just lovely. I spend a lot of time alone I contemplation and silence. I'm always listening.