by Alan K
Well, I'm not talking about dieting, although that probably needs to happen to me. What I'm talking about is the gap between heaven and earth. Let me try to explain. Theologian Paula Gooder talks about the connection seen in scripture between heaven and earth. If you look in Revelation you will see scrolls broken in heaven for example and that affects earth. We pray in the Lord's prayer: Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and that affects what happens on earth. This connection between heaven and earth is important as it may help our prayer life if we start to see prayer as trying to improve the connection between heaven and earth. Paula Gooder continues to tell us about Celtic Christianity and it's understanding of thinness. The Celtic Christians recognised that there were places when the gap between heaven and earth was small. Heaven was closer to earth than other places and as a consequences God's presence was greatly felt. Taize and Iona are examples of that. God's presence is felt clearly and deeply. It is good to go to those places and experience that closeness. What we need to learn at these places is how is that thinness achieved and how I can make more thin places - where the gap between heaven and earth is small - in my daily life. In our daily life we experience thick places - places where the gap between heaven and earth is large and as a consequences God's presence is not felt. What we are called to do as thin-place Christians is to get our spiritual sandpaper out and start to sand the thick places of our daily life in order that the gap between heaven and earth may be narrowed and God's presence would be felt in our homes, and workplaces, our family and our friends, in our local community and our wonderful city. How that looks in your life is up to you and God.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Becoming a thin Christian in a thick world
Posted by Alan Kilpatrick at 9:38 pm
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Some years ago now [2000] I visited the Community of the Servants of the Will of God for a day at their Monastry in Crawley Down. They spend their time in prayerful silence. As I approached the Monastry along a country lane I captured an almost tangible feeling of peace and the presence of God which was at it's strongest at the monastry itself. There was a definite 'thinning' of the distance between heaven and earth as Alan so aptly describes it. As I joined the monks in their daily discipline of silence and contemplation God drew very close and spoke to me in a very tangible way. It was a special and wonderful time with God and a transforming experience for me which I daily try to re-capture in prayer and praise. As we passionately pray and praise God and our wonderful saviour God does thin the distance between heaven and earth for us, but perhaps if your like me you find it hard to listen to Him in silence because of all the 'noise' of our daily existence. The monks in the monastry at Crawley Down have been praying in silence and dialoging with God for more than 60 years and seem to have created a permanent 'thinning' or conduit between heaven and earth, a spiritual 'wormhole', that anyone regardless of their spiritual condition seems to be able to tap into into and benefit from. If anyone is finding the distance between themselves and God rather 'thick' at the moment then I recommend they spend at least a day with these monks in silent meditation. Thank you Alan for your Blog which re-kindled this memory.
Rodney
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