They say that our
polluting ways have caused “holes” in the delicate ozone layer, which keeps us
from being fried by the sun’s radiation. In the spiritual world, there are
similar “holes” in the dense layer that veil our view of God. Instead of deadly
rays from the sun, a little of God himself shines through.
The Irish call them “thin
places,” places where the separation between heaven and earth, the sacred and
the secular, seems especially porous. God leaks through more easily in these
places, it is thought. Another way of saying it is that, in such places, people
find the presence of God more easily. I, too, have been in such places where
God seemed especially present.
Before she died at age
98, I used to fix a Mother’s Day brunch every year for an old friend who was
not even kin to me. It was always a magic time, a time when I felt that I was
actually mediating God’s love to someone who needed to feel it in a tangible
way. On such occasions, it was obvious from her face that these simple gestures
had great significance.
When I was on-call at the
neonatal unit of Norton Hospital, I was called in the wee hours of the morning
by the parents of a very sick child. When I got there, I found them asleep on
the floor, face to face, holding one rosary between them, obviously exhausted
from several nights of keeping vigil. They had fallen asleep praying for God’s
help. I could feel the presence of God hovering over them.
I remember being called
to anoint a young man who was dying from the complications of AIDS. It was back
when AIDS was new on the scene and people were still reacting irrationally. His
family, most of his friends and probably his insurance company had abandoned
him, with the exception of one compassionate neighbor. The apartment was almost
empty, except for a mattress on the floor.
When I arrived, he was
filled with guilt, self-loathing and irritation at the church. He was both
repulsed and attracted by the idea of a priest coming to see him. I talked to
him about the Jesus I knew, the Jesus who welcomed, touched and ate with the
marginalized.
At some point, I put my
prayer book down and spoke from the heart. As I tried to comfort him with the
“good news” that God loves all of us without condition — no ands, ifs or buts
about it — I had a strong sense of Jesus speaking through me at that moment.
There are “thin places”
everywhere, places where God seems to "leak through" more easily. Once we have
been under one of these “thin places,” we do not need “proof” of the existence
of God. We understand on some deep level that God’s love is shining on us all
the time.
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