A Thin Place at the Library

It was a glorious fall afternoon, the kind where the leaves cling to their beauty and the air whispers that change is on the way.

I was sitting in a slightly uncomfortable chair in my local library. It was not where I expected to encounter God. I had just attended a story time and art session with two of my young grandsons. Now they were sitting on the floor and looking at books. The sunlight beamed through the windows and shone on them. They wore hats made from construction paper. The featured decoration was a giant apple. There was an air of innocence and sweet boyhood about the two of them as they seemed unaware of how adorable they looked. They were just wearing what they had made.

And then they asked me to read to them.

They climbed on my lap. The seat became a tad more uncomfortable, but I did not mind. I rested one boy on each leg and began to read. I almost couldn’t. I was overwhelmed by being in the moment. I had been delivered to a “thin place.”

I have heard “thin places” described in different ways, but for me, they are when the connection between heaven and earth is so close we can feel it. We are profoundly aware of God and have a deep sense of the sacred.

I was there.

I held these dear boys and read about Strega Nona and almost sobbed. I felt God was so near. I felt elated to be snuggling with these boys in paper hats and sharing in this moment when I felt so much love and gratitude.

I have read hundreds of times to my ten grandchildren. I have appreciated how bright and beautiful they are. But that day, God gifted me with an extraordinary sense of himself.

I have felt that experience a few times before—at the Grand Canyon or holding a new grandchild. Yet this was a different kind of thin place. It was so ordinary yet so exquisite. It was finding God in the every day. I was able to recognize that this ordinary moment was extraordinary. God’s grace poured into my soul, and I treasured where I was and what I was doing.

I was not thinking about what I had to do next. I was not looking around. I was immersed in reading with these darling, paper-hat wearing boys. I felt so grateful to be alive. I cherished the written word. I hugged those boys tight, knowing that this was a privilege.

The pair of them just listened to me read about the adventures of a familiar Tomie dePaola character. But I was being blessed.

This thin place filled my heart with love and grace. And I was so aware of God at that moment in an uncomfortable chair on a Tuesday, surrounded by children’s books and a glimpse of heaven.

This day was a marriage of the Jesuit concept of “finding God in all things” and Julianne Stanz’s book, Braving the Thin Places. She writes, “In each person’s life are thin places where that person experiences God’s presence in a way that stirs the soul.” That moment of reading with my grandchildren was so ridiculously ordinary. Yet it is marked in my mind and on my heart so deeply. Thin but deep. Regular but inspiring.

To this day, I thank God for that experience and hunger for another.