October 29th, 2006

I had a different perspective on Sunday worship, participating with the congregation rather than playing guitar and singing as a musician. It was a beautiful Sunday for the change; being both Reformation Sunday and Affirmation of Baptism at the 10:15 service. Perhaps it was an answer to my question about Creator transforming my life.

Service followed the Now the Feast and Celebration setting. Pastor Mark opened the worship service and Pastor Dayle led the children’s time and gave the sermon. An unexpected blessing for me was experiencing worship where Pastor Dayle and Pastor Mark each presided over different parts of the worship. The service was richer for it.

Reading Marcus Borg's The Heart of Christianity is coloring this writing. I was introduced by Borg's book to the metaphor of “thin places” from Celtic Christianity, a form of Christianity that flourished in Ireland and parts of Scotland, Wales and northern England beginning in the fifth century.

“Thin places” has its home in a particular way of thinking about God. It sees God, “the More,” as the encompassing Spirit in which everything is. In this view, God is not somewhere else, but he is right here. As Paul says in Acts, God is “the one in whom we live and move and have our being.” Borg notes that one of his favorite quotations expressing this understanding of God is from Thomas Merton.

“Life is this simple. We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through it all the time. This is not just a fable or a nice story. It is true. If we abandon ourselves to God and forget ourselves, we see it sometimes, and we see it maybe frequently. God shows Himself everywhere, in everything - in people and in things and in nature and in events. it becomes very obvious that God is everywhere and in everything and we cannot be without Him. It is impossible. The only thing is that we don’t see it.”

We don’t see God, but when our hearts are open we do occasionally “experience God shining through everything.” These occasions are Borg’s thin places.

Worship Sunday was such a thin space for me. The setting and singing, hymns like A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, the lessons and the gospel were all part of the feeling. Probably the different perspective was the another piece, together with Pastor Dayle and Pastor Mark working together on presiding over worship and lastly reading the faith statements from those who were about to go through the Affirmation of Baptism.

Pastor Dayle challenged us in the sermon to come up with our own faith statements and then mission statements about what we believe we are meant to be about in our faith.

There is a William Wordsworth poem The World is Too Much With Us; Late and Soon that sums up part of what I struggle against and what this service moved me from:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

And yet I don't need to be standing on a pleasant lea. If I can move to a personal description of this "thin" place, it was not about natural beauty but of familiarty and an affirmation of radical faith we rediscover through God's grace. Wordsworth states, "For this, for everything, we are out of tune" and at most moments in my life this rings true. Sometimes, however, life is in tune. Experience teaches rather than just unfolding.

That is the "thin" place for me and worship transformed me again today. It was a brief glimpse of something I am afraid to hang onto but today the glimpse was enough.