Christmas Eve found me in the front pew of a charming California stone church with clerestory stained glass windows and an actual nave dominated by a majestic stained glass depiction of Emmanuel as shepherd, the One for whom we’ve made this pilgrimage at all. The pews behind me were filled with those also seeking Him, and the social halls received live streaming for the church’s parishioners who were unfortunate enough to arrive less than an hour before schedule. My row was filled not with my biological family but instead one of my chosen families with whom I have shared life for more than 20 years – heartaches and heartbeats, tears and laughter, hopes and desolation, and all surviving multiple continents. This was not my home church, not even my hometown, but this was where I had chosen to be.
I had driven 6 hours almost on a whim. I had come because I felt the need for a thin place. Do you know the concept? The Catholic priest, Fr. Richard Rohr, ascribes the idea of a “thin place,” a place where God is close enough to touch, close enough to feel, to the Celts. “The edge is a holy place, or as the Celts called it, ‘a thin place’ and you have to be taught how to live there.” (Richard Rohr, Life on the Edge: Understanding the Prophetic Position, 2011.) But there is some debate about whether the concept predates the Celts; I’m not about to argue. My only care is that I needed my “thin place.” I needed to touch God.
Now, no theological debates please. I am well aware He lives within me. He promises to never leave, and He is always faithful in His promises. My head tells me He is also all around me, the life and light in everything I see, but it’s been a rough few weeks (or months) for several reasons, and (being real here) I’ve been aching. That devouring ache demanded I touch Him.
I talk a lot to Him, but in the immediate recent, it’s just me speaking. I’ve heard not a word, not even a syllable, and how I’ve been listening! I pray, oh do I pray, constantly pray. I pray when I run, I pray when write, I pray when I play the piano. But answering, there’s just…deafening silence, and that’s what slices ever so deeply. And right now, in the midst of this Season, this Holy, beautiful Season, I long to hear.
So, I turned away from the pain, and turned to where I know I will always find Him – the ocean. I see Him in the whitecaps of the surf. I hear Him in the solid break of the waves on the sand. I feel Him in the vast, endless horizon. And I know He’s omnipresent, even should He remain silent in my head and heart. I will find him here in this “thin place,”and even should I not hear him, I shall touch him. Even better, He shall touch my heart once again, and I shall, once again, be able to close my eyes, inhale deeply, then open my eyes and know that I can keep going, keep walking, keep feeling.
Tonight I shall return to my tiny hotel room and watch yet another screening of A Christmas Story. I’ll watch as Randy can’t put his arms down, then watch as Ralphie finally gets his Red Rider BB Gun, and my Christmas shall be complete. But it’s fullness won’t be because I saw my favorite Christmas movie or decorated my tree or watched at the Hotel Del Coronado as ice skaters (improbably) glided immediately adjacent to the Pacific Ocean or even because I watched tiny little girls twirl proudly in their grand Christmas dresses (One of my all-time favorite Christmas traditions. Really, is anything sweeter?). It will be because the God who loved me enough to shed His immortality and assume the form of human frailty also loved me enough to find me on a beach beside the Pacific Ocean on Christmas Day. And I will know I am humbly and amazingly blessed.
Merry Christmas. You are loved beyond all measure.
The Unexpected Life 