becoming

Mark Roberts, senior director of Laity Lodge, just completed his excellent series on “Thin Places”. What is a “Thin Place”, you asked? It is a phrase used to describe a particular place where “God is especially present”. And Mark starts by honestly telling you his nervousness on this whole notion of “Thin Place”:

… In certain Christian circles, Celtic Christianity has become wildly popular, and so has the use of “thin place” to describe places where people experience God (or “the divine,” if you prefer). I have tended to resist this language, partly because of its trendy overuse, and partly because of my nagging discomfort about its meaning.

Nonetheless, he traces its possible biblical root — from Eden, to Sinai, to the Tabernacle, to the Temple. I am glad to read his comment that Jesus was the ultimate thin place, and is challenged by his observation that thin places continue to exist despite the Word was made flesh — Jesus continued to pray in places free from the business/craziness of ordinary life. Yet interesting enough, “we do not find in Jesus the idea that certain particular places are necessarily and essentially thin. Rather, any place of quiet and distance from civilization can become a thin place if one goes there to spend an extended time with the Lord” (emphasis mine).