My friend Gill has recently sent me this photograph of dewdrops on a cobweb near her home in the Lake District.
My thoughts centred on the fragility and ephemeral nature of the scene.  A word often associated with spiders’ webs is ‘gossamer’ – a fine filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by spiders; light, thin, delicate, almost insubstantial. Certainly short-lived. But another way of seeing it is that of a thin place, a tissue paper kind of boundary between two worlds.

‘Thin Place’ is an idea many of us use to describe places where God seems spiritually and, in a way, physically present to us.
Obvious thin places are religious shrines, like that at Santiago de Compostella where pilgrims walk from many places in Europe to the Northern area of Spain, to a journey end at the Shrine of St. James the Great there. When I made the pilgrimage there  a few years ago, I was deeply moved by the experience of God I had and I knew then what a thin place truly is.
There are many such places, such as Iona, the Holy Island of Lindisfarne and legions of other places. Every religion has such holy places which have been sanctified by God and by prayers of the pilgrims.
Not all are huge centres like Lisieux in Northern France or Lourdes where many go to pray for healing. Some are almost backwaters like Little Gidding near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. It is a quiet oasis and not that easy to find. However,  those who visit, certainly can say of it, words which the great poet T.S.Eliot coined in the Quartet Poem to which he gave it’s name. It is a place where Prayer has been valid. It is valid still. It is truly a thin place where it feels very easy to meet God.

Though all that is true, Gill’s photo reminds me that not all thin places are permanent nor beyond the immediate moment, spectacular. God sanctifies all our meetings with him, it’s just that we don’t often recognize it. (at least, I don’t !) I have to keep remind myself of something St. Teresa of Avila said – God walks among the pots and pans. Her soul friend, St John of the Cross, puts that rather more beautifully, when he says, “God passes through the thicket of the world, and wherever His glance falls He turns all things to beauty.”

In the spider’s web decorated with dewdrops we can be aware of that.
It becomes a way in which God reveals his presence and it is a personal revelation so everything could be experienced as  a thin place. Whether it be cleaning the dishes in the kitchen or catching our breath at some lovely sight in the world. Being touched by God, becoming aware of the spiritual in the midst of the ordinariness of life, can be a breath-giving moment. Such an experience can be seen as an act of love on God’s part. In such ways, he presents his ‘calling card’ to us
In the war torn areas of our world it may not seem like that but even there,maybe especially there, in kindnesses and moments when people are touched by love, care and by prayer,  almost unawares, certainly not always invited, God comes to call.

[Mr G]

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