Thin Places

October 30, 2015

Thin Places

I spent some time the other night at the bedside of a dear friend who is dying.  He is in the late stages of brain cancer and he now lies in a rented hospital bed in his first floor dining room receiving daily care from hospice nurses and his amazing wife.

I felt privileged to witness the gentle and loving care of his wife as we stood there and she stroked his cheeks, asked him what she could do for him, and held his hand.  He can no longer respond though his eyes opened a bit periodically and seemed to be connecting with hers and with mine.

During these moments I mentioned that I find some comfort in the notion that a death bed for a believer is in some respect what the Celtic Christian would refer to as a “thin space” where the veil separating earth and heaven is very thin.  Since Daniel died I have sensed that the place of death functions as a transition point and so naturally is a thin space where heaven and earth somehow meet when a person is in the process of making this mysterious transition.

From my point of view, as I shared the other night, this place is made sacred as God bathes it in his holiness and holds our loved one in his hand through the transition from this life to the next.

I realize that all of this is my tenuous attempt to put words around one of the deepest mysteries of our lives – what happens as we die.  I also realize that many people find this thinking silly, old-fashioned, and highly irrational.  I know that none of this is provable to us as humans, and yet I also know that I need this hope and faith to survive and find some meaning in these losses. 

Believing that Jesus is waiting on the other side of this veil with open arms to welcome us home gives me a hope and assurance – a peace that passes understanding to keep going in spite of my own longing for the ones I have lost.  Thanks be to God.