Celtic Christianity teaches that there are “thin places”—locations where supernatural-natural worlds almost intersect spatially.[1] Sensitive folk have a sense of a sixth sense. Perhaps Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s lines from “Aurora Leigh” capture the concept best with her line, “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God: but only he who sees, takes off his shoes—the rest sit around and pluck blackberries.”[2]
Church history is full of characters whose lives were intimately acquainted with supernatural sensitivities. Aidan of Lindisfarne brought The Gospel to England after others declared the “Angles” to be uncivilized.[3] Aidan’s prayer says
Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
Make me an island, set apart,
alone with you, God, holy to you.Then with the turning of the tide
prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,the world that rushes in on me
till the waters come again and fold me back to you.[4]
Brendan the Navigator established monasteries which functioned as places of contemplation as well as education.[5] St. Patrick prayed at day’s beginning for God’s “host to save me from snares of demons . . . I summon today all these powers between me and those evils, against . . . incantations . . . black laws . . . crafts of idolatry . . . spells of witches and smiths and wizards . . .every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.”[6]
Historical, Scriptural events evidence the intersection of Heaven and earth. Abraham entertains Heaven in human form outside his tent in Genesis 18. Elisha asks Yahweh to open his servant’s eyes to see the angelic army surrounding the physical Syrian army in 2 Kings 6. Supernatural battles keeping God’s messengers from delivering a message are recorded in Daniel 10. Philip’s inexplicable transfer from one location to another for evangelism is found in Acts 8. And Satan’s contention for Moses’ body with the archangel Michael is used as an example of worlds colliding in Jude 9.
A number of movies reflect a paranormal point of view. In the Electric Mist Tommy Lee Jones’ character continues to meet a long-dead Civil War Confederate general who teaches him life-lessons. First Snow presents a normal, everyday event transforming Guy Pearce whose life is changed because of a predictive utterance given by a sideshow card-reader. Seraphim Falls starring Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnan display the awful consequences of the Civil War which so haunt the two characters that their lives become interpretations of desert prophets. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is an example of the horror genre which acknowledges another world. Intersection of physic and mystic is a truer definition of reality.
The realism of Genesis 1:2, I believe, is the origin of “thin places.” The phrase “without form and void” is not chaos but the pre-ordered world gently protected by The Spirit of God. Before structures and systems are established within creation the raw materials are brought into being out of nothing. Supernatural Spirit protection incubates the pre-formed created elements as a mother bird incubates her eggs.[7] Unlike non-historical myths of the day, Genesis’ primordial materials were not menacing, sinister, nor chaotic.[8] God’s personal presence in His world, the intersection of spirit and matter, is begun in Genesis 1:2. “The account leaves mysterious what cannot help but be mysterious.”[9] As George MacDonald is heard to say over a century ago
Whenever you begin to speak of anything true, divine, heavenly, or supernatural, you cannot speak of it at all without speaking about it wrongly in some measure. We have no words, we have no phrases, we have no possible combination of sentences that do more than represent fragmentarily the greatness of the things that belong to the very vital being of our nature.[10]
Travelers to “thin places” consistently say, “When I come on the property it is as if all my burdens have been lifted.” A Celtic benediction entitled “The Hermit’s Song” is a possible explanation of the phenomenon called “thin places.”
I wish, O Son of the living God, O ancient, eternal King,
For a hidden little hut in the wilderness, That it may be my dwelling. . . .Quite near, a beautiful wood, Around it on every side,
To nurse many-voiced birds, Hiding it with its shelter. . . .Raiment and food enough for me, From the King of fair fame,
And I to be sitting for a while, Praying God in every place.
In the infinity of night skies, in the free flashing of lightening, in whirling elemental winds, you are God.
In the impenetrable mists of dark clouds, in the wild gusts of lashing rain, in the ageless rocks of the sea, you are God and I bless you. You are in all things and contained by no thing. You are the Life of all life and beyond every name. You are God and in the eternal mystery I praise you.
Mark believes horror films come closest to the Christian worldview, acknowledging a world outside this one.
[1] www.thinplaces.net
[2] Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “From Aurora Leigh.” Reprinted in Poetry for The Spirit, ed. Alan Jacobs. (Watkins): 280-82.
[3] https://www.prayerfoundation.org/favoritemonks/favorite_monks_aidan_of_lindisfarne.htm
[4] https://www.prayerfoundation.org/aidans_prayer.htm
[5] https://www.prayerfoundation.org/favoritemonks/favorite_monks_brendan_the_navigator.htm
[6] https://www.prayerfoundation.org/st_patricks_breastplate_prayer.htm
[7] Deuteronomy 32:11.
[8] The explanation of Genesis 1:2 is best grasped by reading John H. Walton, The NIV Application Commentary: Genesis (Zondervan): 72-78.
[9] Leon R. Kass. 2003. The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis. (Free Press): 29.
[10] George MacDonald, from a sermon preached in June, 1882 entitled, “Faith, the Proof of the Unseen.”