They call it a Thin Place

Where the gap between the worlds is extra thin

I was watching my favourite Harry Potter movie the other night — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. This is the episode where Harry really starts to get to grips with good and evil, and the love for family and friends versus the lust for power. The pivotal scene occurs in the Ministry of Magic, where evil Lord Voldemort and his goons have lured Harry, his school mates, and the grown-up good guys to a showdown. Wands are drawn, curses are thrown, and Sirius Black (Harry's godfather) is struck dead by his evil cousin Bellatrix. It's all very exciting and quite moving — I always have to have a tissue ready. When Sirius dies, his body floats away through a mysterious archway to 'the other side', whatever that may be for wizards. Harry, mad with grief, has to be restrained lest he follows his guardian. Everyone watching understands that once you go through the arch, you can't come back. The archway is like a door straight to the house of God.

The ancient Celts knew this concept — they called it the Thin Place. To our ears that sounds like some sort of weight-loss centre; but to the Irish a Thin Place is one where the membrane between this world and the next is literally thinner than usual, making the divine seem somehow easier to feel and access. All sorts of places can feel thin — caves and wells are common; so too are natural formations like the Rock of Cashel or the Giant's Causeway. Monastic ruins can be particularly thin, not just because we can feel God's presence there, but because many, many Christian souls before us have done so too.

Gallarus Oratory is such a place. It looks like it has been plonked in the middle of nowhere in a windswept part of the Dingle peninsula in Kerry, Ireland.

It's a far cry from our neat, traditional, 20th century-built St Paul's. And yet is our worship space any less spiritual? How do you feel when you walk in the door on a Sunday morning, turn right and face the sanctuary, with its beautiful paraments, the classic old altar and the Trinity window? Is this a Thin Place for you?

Perhaps modern Christians underplay the importance of place in meeting God. Many of us believe that God can be encountered anywhere — in the bush, at the sea, in the street, or the slum — anywhere God's people are, there He is too. And we are right to think this. But does this mean that there is less value in encountering Jesus in the physical space of 'church'? Or that we don't need to come to church to meet God?

Coming to St Paul's gives us the one thing we can't get anywhere else — the opportunity to meet Jesus in person in the Lord's Supper. Jesus explicitly promised He would come to us in this sacrament, when we gather together in His name. That's why we need to make it to church each week. To gather at our Thin Place.

Kathy Mildred