Discovering thin places: How to encounter God in everyday life

The phrase, "thin places," dates back to the ancient Celts who used it to describe those times when we feel closest to the God, as if the veil between the natural world and spiritual world becomes very thin. The Reverend Jane Ellen Nickel discusses how to discover these sacred spaces in our own lives where we can encounter God in a real and near way.

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Guest: The Rev. Jane Ellen Nickell

Read Nickell's writings about thin places at her blog, "A Nickell for your thoughts"
Nickell is an ordained elder in the West Virginia Conference of The UMC.

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This episode posted on March 1, 2024.

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Transcript

Prologue

Crystal Caviness, host: Jane Ellen, welcome to “Get your Spirit in Shape.”

Jane Ellen Nickell, guest: Thank you, Crystal. I'm so glad to talk with you today.

Crystal: I'm excited too. Well, we are new friends. We have only met in the past couple of months when we worked together on a project for the United Methodist Churches General Commission on Archives and History. That's when I first met you. And in this very short time, I have learned that you are a thoughtful, deeply feeling person who really just leaves an imprint of love wherever you go. That's been my experience anyway. So I'm excited for this conversation because I think at the end of it I'm going to get to know you a little bit better and our audience will definitely will get to know you too. So before we get started, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Jane Ellen: I grew up Methodist in West Virginia. This is my home state, my home conference. I had another career in arts administration and then went to seminary. I'm an ordained elder in the West Virginia Conference. I served as an associate pastor for three years, actually, the church I was baptized in, but not the one I grew up in. And then went to Drew University for a PhD and then spent the next 16 years as a college chaplain in Western Pennsylvania at Allegheny College. I am retired from there and I now attend a Methodist church, stone United Methodist in Meadville, Pennsylvania, and preached for them occasionally and also for the Unitarians. One of the benefits of being a college chaplain was I was not just the United Methodist minister. I worked with students of all religions and of none, and really got to understand the diversity of spirituality, especially that younger generations embrace. And so it's nice to be able to be with my spiritual siblings in the Unitarian Church now and then. And so that's a little bit about me. I live with two cats and they bring much joy to my life.

Crystal: Well, thank you for sharing that. And I would say if we had to kind of put a category on today's podcast, it would definitely be a spirituality. I feel like that's what we're going to talk about. As I learned more about you, I discovered that you write a blog. I do. And we will link to that to your website and your blogs on our episode page as well. And I read a recent one titled Thin Places, and it really impacted me and that's what led to today's podcast. I reached out to you and said, can we talk about this even more? I will tell you though, when I was getting ready earlier today for the podcast, I got suddenly really scared and I was like, oh no, we're going to talk about dying. I don't want to talk about dying. And this is such a fragile topic for a lot of people, including myself.

Ten months ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends died unexpectedly after a short illness. And in my opinion, at much too young of an age. And then two weeks ago, the father of two of my college suite mates passed away and our families have been close for 40 years. And so it seems like the circle, it's definitely not expanding, but it's closing in on me as I confront the mortality of those people that I love the most, honestly, my own mortality. Anyway, that's what interested me to have this conversation because while we're going to talk about dying, when we talk about thin places, there's this sense of hopefulness in it too. And for me, it kind of conjures up this supernatural imagery,

For people who don't know about thin places, can you give a definition?

Jane Ellen: That whole idea comes out of Celtic spirituality. So it goes back to the early pagans who felt like there were certain places where the spirit world was closer to this world, and they actually believed angels would go up and down from the spirit world to this world. But that there were also certain times of the year, and specifically around the end of October, I always think of that as the time when sort of the natural world is dying off, plants are dying, animals are starting to hibernate. The Pagan celebration around then was Samhain. If people have seen the word S-A-M-H-A-I-N, that's pronounced Saan. It's not spelled at all it sounds, but that's Celtic languages for Gaelic, I guess for you. But anyway, that festival was the time again when they thought the spirits would be close enough to cross over and they would wear costumes to ward off the fairies so that the fairies wouldn't abduct the spirits who were trying to cross over.

So that ended up being, once that area was Christianized and has happened with a lot of holidays, the Pagan holidays became Christianized. So that became All Saints Day on November 1st and all Hallows Eve, of course the day before is Halloween. So we've carried on the custom of wearing costumes on that day. And then the Catholic Church set November 1st is All Saints Day, and then November 2nd is All Souls Day. For those who are not canonized, most Protestants just recognize the dead of their congregation on All Saints Day. So that place, that's sort of the explanation of what thin places are. But I think when I think about it, it's allowing that close presence of those who've gone before us. As I mentioned in my blog, my mom passed away in August and I have been, and I'm currently in her house cleaning out 65 years worth of her life.

And it is like living in a thin place. I feel her presence every day. And sometimes it's very close to tears, shed many tears, and others, it's very comforting. So I think we don't talk about death, as you said, it's painful. I mean, it's loss, but it's also something that none of us can escape. We can't escape our own death or that of the people that we love. So I really appreciated this opportunity to be in conversation with you and to talk about something that is, like I said, inescapable, but for many people, a very, very painful topic.

Crystal: Thank you, Jane Ellen, for giving us the history. I had no idea. I didn't know anything about how that was related. And the Catholic Church, well, in Mexico, actually it has another name, Day of the Dead, which a Disney movie has made much more familiar.

Jane Ellen: They actually believe that the spirits can come back and visit. So the movie “Coco” is about that, and they will make these altars their friend days with the favorite treats to lure the spirits back. And they use Marigold because they believe that both the colors and the fragrance will tempt the spirits to come back and visit on the day. And it's a very festive celebration. I think the Latin American student group at Allegheny would always do Day of the Dead. I'm not good with Spanish, but they would always do some kind of an activity, and it was very festive and again, a celebration of those people's lives.

Crystal: And I really appreciate that kind of looking at it through a lens of celebration other than more, or maybe additionally looking at it through a place of grief and mourning. Maybe mourning would be a better way to turn that, because grief could also be a way to celebrate. I put negative emotions on grief, but I guess grief could be in celebrating as well.

Jane Ellen: Yeah, I like that. I really like that idea of grief can lead to celebration, or celebration could be part of grief. Usually when I'm doing a funeral or a memorial service or whatever for my mom, or the ones we did, we've done at Allegheny for either students or faculty, and we call them celebrations of life because that's what we try to do, of course. And I always say, this is going to be sad. It is sad, but that our goal is to celebrate the life this person lived and the ways that we will remember them.

Crystal: When I was reading about thin places, I came across a couple of articles. Psychology Today had an article, a really great article about this topic, the New York Times. I found something from really about a decade ago. It was a little older, but there were some things that I really liked. One of them said, and I found this in both places, that the Celtics believed heaven and earth are three feet apart. And I thought, well, that's not much. However I'm trying to bridge that chasm.

Jane Ellen: Right, right, right. Yeah,

Crystal: It's certainly not a thin place.

Jane Ellen: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think Christian theology has really kind of constructed heaven as way up there out of reach, and that somehow our loved ones get swept up in that whole idea of the rapture being swept up in the sky. And I really loved, especially some of the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures where they describe God walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the night, and you think of Moses encountering God in a burning bush and on Sinai and the pillar of cloud leading them through the wilderness, and that God was very, very present. And so also I would think the spirits that accompany God and the spirits of our loved ones are also as close as that presence of God is. Yeah.

Crystal: So I've heard this before. You've likely heard it too, that we are not human people having a spiritual experience, but rather we're spiritual people having a human experience.

Jane Ellen: I haven't heard that, but I really liked that.

Crystal: Well, when I heard it, it just really changed a lot for me in how I perceive my life and how I perceive my existence here. And so when I think of that perception, I guess, or perspective on myself and this thin places, it would make sense that I'm going to be drawn to the thin places. Yeah.

Jane Ellen: Yeah. I mean there's sort of that sense again in Christian theology of Heaven is our real home, and we are just sort of traveling in this earth. And I'm also very involved with environmental issues and ecology. And so I don't like to see this world as just a place we're visiting because I think it is we're created of the stuff of the earth, but there is that spark of us that is more than just matter. And so we are, I think you're right. We are spirits. And again, working with college students, Alleghany is a progressive liberal arts school, that very small number of students would describe themselves as religious, but most of them are spiritual and are looking for opportunities to express and experience their spiritual lives. And yeah, it's something that even as people walk away from formal religion, that is still an important part of who we are.

Crystal: The New York Times article, which of course was not through a faith-based lens, nor was Psychology Today, but it was still a very spiritually rich content. One of the phrases in that, or one of the thoughts in that was the author said, we're able to catch glimpses of the divine. So do you mind sharing some places where you've caught glimpses of the divine as you've been in these thin places, maybe particularly as you're in your mom's home and you're going through that process?

Jane Ellen: Well, my mom was a very, very, I mean, I was raised in a family of faith. My parents were very devoted. They were both lay people who we spent many, many hours at the church. My brothers and I all spoke at mom's service, and we all said going to church was not optional when we were growing up. So to us, they were such great leaders of the faith. But I'm reading my mom's journal. I'm finding just tons of notes and little things that she could, I mean, I could fill a book with just all the little sort of spiritual nuggets that she had clipped from some place. So I'm seeing the way she nurtured her own spiritual life. So that's been for me, a lot of spiritual richness, just finding like, wow, I never heard that before. Oh, I see why that was important to her.

So I'm really finding, again, sort of experiencing her spirituality and her deep faith in new ways, because I said one of my brothers would've just pulled up a dumpster and thrown everything in. I am really literally almost reading everything I do get to the point he's like, Nope, nope, can't read that one. But really just sort of enjoying savoring some of the things that spoke to them. But I would say for me, normally so much, and I find this with a lot of people, I find the divine very present in nature. When you ask people to describe experiences in nature, that it almost always takes that sort of religious tone, just the awe. People say they don't believe in miracles. I'm like, this little acorn is going to be an oak tree. That is a miracle. We are surrounded by just remarkable natural processes and designs, and sometimes just the view of the outline of a tree against a blue sky. I'll just stop and catch my breath, and I try to make sure that I stop and I watch that and I look at it and I appreciate it, and I offer a little prayer of thanks for such beauty in a world where we tend to be surrounded by harshness and anger and strife, and that somehow and even all that we have done to the natural world, that beauty of God still persists

Jane Ellen:

Actually, the blog posts came out of a sermon that I had preached. I ended up preaching at my church a couple of years ago on Halloween, and I just couldn't resist preaching about thin places. And I said to me, the whole universe is a thin place. The problem is not whether the spirits are near, whether God is nearest, whether we are open to it. So I feel like we need to take those moments to pause, to stop and look at the sunset, to do whatever rituals. We live such thick lives. You and I were talking before we got on about all the things that I feel like I'm as busy since I retired, but it's just layers and layers of different things that I'm doing instead of one job that takes 40 hours, it's 40 hours of eight different volunteer jobs. And so I find myself having to say, wait a minute.

You can take a breath. A big part of my family was here this weekend helping with some things, and this morning I just was like, I'm going to sit down and finish reading the novel that I've been working on and just take a little time to just reintegrate and regroup. So I think we just need to take those moments to pause. Be aware of the beauty, the spirit, the presence of God, however you define a thin place. Think about all the times that Jesus even stole. I described Jesus as a walking thin place. He has God incarnate, so he is spirit embodied. But in a sense, like you said, we all are as well, not as fully divine as Jesus, but even Jesus had to take time away. So I think we can make the thin places. Sometimes they come on us sort of unexpected. When we hear a song or a smell, a smell is a really big trigger of memories, and it takes us back to a person who's departed that suddenly we feel like we're in their presence again. So I think sometimes we stumble into thin places, but I think we can also sort of carve out that time to let ourselves experience the spirit of God, the spirit of the ancestors, whatever. Yeah.

I'd like to take a break from our conversation with Jane Ellen to tell you about a unique career, one that you may never heard of, but one you'll likely never forget. The career is house parenting at Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Milton Hershey School is one of the world's best private schools where students from disadvantaged backgrounds receive an exceptional education with all cost covered. Each student from pre-K through 12th grade lives on campus in a home with other children of the same gender and age, managed by a married couple who cares for their daily needs and teaches skills. While it's important you feel called to this role, it's not a volunteer position. Couples receive a combined pre-tax salary of more than $85,000, a private apartment, meals, utilities, and a comprehensive benefit package. House parents are critical to how Milton Hershey School fulfills its mission to provide opportunity, safety, and stability for the children who need it most. If you're a married couple with a heart for children, Milton Hershey School invites you to discover your next chapter. Learn more at mhskids.org/house parents. Now, let's return to our conversation with Jane Ellen.

Crystal: One of these articles I was reading said, Walt Disney World is not a thin place, neither is Cancun is not a thin place, although I would argue that the beach,

Jane Ellen: Yeah, well, I'm a beach person even though I was raised in the mountains, I'm all beach.

Crystal: But I get it that Disney world is not a thin place because of all the reasons you said. How can we find that quiet, that inner peace, and maybe you can.

Jane Ellen: Disney World has its place.

Crystal: Yes, that's right.

Jane Ellen: As do all the different layers of things that we, but it feels like our lives are so jam packed. Now you talk to people who are balancing job and family and getting kids to this, and parents, we were both at phases where we were caring for parents, and it's just like, where do you find that space? I feel like we're just inundated by stimuli. There's always something on technology has just allowed us to just have more and more piped into our lives. And I sometimes just want to say, put the phones away, turn off the computers, and just walk away. And I think a lot of students, more and more of them, more and more young people are seeking that We would offer nature walks, and they just really valued that time to, sometimes we would do specifically spiritual ones where there was reflection time, and sometimes it was just like, let's just go for a walk in the woods. And I think our spirits yearn for that at any age.

Crystal: Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, nothing is as good a medicine for me than just feeling the sun on my face, just stepping outside and just feeling the air. And that's just, yes, nature is very healing and therapeutic that way.

Jane Ellen: And just those pauses.

Crystal: Yes, these thin places, they feel so sacred. And how can I willingly create especially, and I'm thinking about now in a time of grieving or mourning someone that I love, I probably would want to be in the spaces, the thin places a lot because I would want to be hanging on to those memories.

Jane Ellen: And I think everyone has to find their own way through loss. I think if you seal yourself off for emotions, if you avoid the thin places, then you never really come to terms with your loss. It is painful to lose someone. My mom was 94, her death was peaceful. She was in her home till the week before she died. All of her kids and my two siblings and their spouses, we were all around her bedside. You couldn't have had a better, well, actually, she wanted to die in her own bed in her sleep, but that not withstanding, she had a wonderful death, but it was still, we are just hugely missing her. So with our blessings and our gratitude for the way she did, we're trying to make sure that we go through those thin places that we allow ourselves, those moments that just kind of catch us off guard and instead of, oh, I've got to get busy.

That hurts. To allow yourself to experience those memories and that presence of your loved one or their spirit in a way that helps you to know their presence is with you still, in some ways you said embrace that thin place.

Crystal: My question was about kind of wanting to stay in that thin place, but at the minute I said that, I almost immediately thought, but I might be scared to be in that thin place.

Jane Ellen: Yeah, well, and I think I began to say, you need to find the balance. I mean, you don't want to get lost in that place. If that is the only place you're living, then that's not good. But it's finding that balance of acknowledging those feelings, being in that thin place, welcoming that presence of your departed loved one when you experience it, but not trying to hang onto that forever. It is painful. It's hard. I think the fourth podcast I've done, and this is the third one on death, which is funny.

Crystal: Well, I was just getting ready to mention, I just listened to a podcast that you recorded, I think maybe was just released in the last couple of weeks, I think it was called End of Life Conversations.

And one of the things I appreciated, the host, one of the hosts said, when do you remember first experiencing death? And you talked about how being in the church helped that experience as, and I'm totally paraphrasing so I apologize, but it was an event that happened in life and you were surrounded by people who really nurtured you through it. So it wasn't something that you were going through alone, that you were there with your church community, your church family, and that this is just life death. This is one of these things that happens that was such a gift that that's what your experience, how you first learned about death. And I think a lot of us, if we are in the church, that is true or the death of a pet or something like that. But I wonder in the church, how can we do a better job of talking about death preparing us because I'm in the south, we're going to be there with food 100% of the time, we're going to feed you through your grief.

Jane Ellen: Yeah, I think talking about it is a great idea. There's a group in Meadville, Pennsylvania that I've been part of. We were trying to get some green burial spots in Meadville where people can be buried. And again, not to slam the funeral industry, it evolved for a reason. But I think so much of it tries to protect us from the reality of death. We want the person to look like they're asleep. We want to put them in a casket that's concrete and steel or reinforce so that they don't. But the natural thing is for our bodies to return to the earth. And so green burial is a way to allow that to happen. Bearing people in wooden box, not embalmed, wooden boxes, bush sch rights. But the other thing that group does is death cafes, which is a movement across the country where people are trained to facilitate conversations about death because we don't talk about it.

And so I am interested that that's a secular movement when I would think the church would be the place where we should be able to talk about death again as a reality. But that is a place that with our belief that we will be resurrected with Christ, that our life as an end here, that we should still talk about that in a way that acknowledges, again, that transition of someone from being in this world with us to being in another place. And I find the church often is reluctant to do that. So I would think that's a good place to start is just to create that opportunity in that space for people to acknowledge their fears, but also find what are the comforting words of scripture. I find you talked about the casseroles and showing up with food and everything. One of the things when I went into ministry, I realized there are some things you can't fix.

You can't bring back a dead loved when you can't change cancer diagnosis. But being there with someone is enough. It often feels like so little, especially if someone has died tragically or too young or whatever, and you're like, oh my gosh, there's nothing I can do. But being there with someone, praying with someone, reminding them of the comforting words from scripture, everyone wants the 23rd Psalm at a funeral because there's so much comfort. And I think, again, because of the familiarity more, even more so than what the words say. So that presence is still a very important part of what we can do and what the church can do for folks. It's just, yes, I understand your grieving. Can I sit with you? Can I be with you? What can I do for you? And not being afraid to go into that space with someone because of your own fears of your mortality or of their grief or anger or whatever they happen to be experiencing.

Crystal: And I think in doing that, being brave enough to do that and enter that space, you may be creating a thin place yourself.

Jane Ellen: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Meeting someone in grief, that's a real thin place because the emotions we tend to live bottled up. We often have those things bottled up, and so being willing to move into that place where you meet someone else in their vulnerability and are willing to put yourself in that vulnerability, but trusting again as the thin places where the spirit is close or where God is close, that God would be in the midst of that as well,

Crystal: Which honestly segues just so well. You must be reading my mind. Jane Allen. I was just going to ask you, it seems like we would be talking about thin places more in the church because the church, I mean, the reason we're in a church community a lot of times is because we're trying to, we're in this faith journey on our own. We're finding like-minded people hopefully to kind of walk out that journey through life with us. And part of that goal is to feel closer to God, to feel closer, to just be a loving presence in the world. And so if the thin place, as the New York Times says, we're able to catch glimpses of the divine, if that's a thin place does, then that's a place where we may want to have some intentionality about understanding thin places and learning about God in those thin places. Yes,

Jane Ellen: Absolutely. Yeah. Again, I think we tend to want even our experiences of God sort of mediated and in familiar and comfortable places, and sometimes it's those moments either of sheer beauty or sheer terror or fear or whatever, that we recognize God's presence that really are the ones that end up being meaningful and where we really have experienced, I mean, not all of us are going to have a Damascus road experience, but I think that God does come to us in unexpected ways and places, and just being open to that and being willing to step into that thin place and open your spirit to the presence of God.

Crystal: As we finish up today, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to make sure we definitely discussed?

Jane Ellen: We have covered so much rich territory. I wasn't sure where we were going to go, but yeah, no, I think we've gone wherever I expected to, and then some, I think, no, I don't think there's anything else I would've wanted to talk about.

Crystal: What I love about the topic is that there's certainly information out there, but it's such a personal experience, and so if no one, you're listening to the podcast and this is the first time you've heard this phrase, thin places, I just really encourage you to learn more about it, and I'll definitely, as we mentioned, I'll link to your blog where I've read about it in your words, which is so eloquent, but also to start looking for those places that are thin places.

Jane Ellen: Yeah, I do just think it's a beautiful analogy for the fact that we often insulate ourselves away from God's presence even as we're seeking it. And so I love that idea of thinking of thin places as places where we are more fully open to God's presence. That's always with us. Yeah,

Crystal: Absolutely. The last question I'm going to ask you is the one that we ask all of our guests on “Get Your Spirit in Shape,” and that's how do you keep your own spirit in shape?

Jane Ellen: Well, time with family, friends, times of rest, times in nature. I am a middle child, and so I try to seek moderation and balance. Not too busy, not too idle, and just trying to find a nice balance of life, and I don't always achieve that. Obviously my schedule is usually more packed than I would like, but I guess I'm guilty of trying to experience all the richness that this world offers, and sometimes that takes us into pretty crowded territory, but relishing and savoring each moment as it comes.

Crystal: That is quite the goal, isn't it?

Jane Ellen: Yeah, and I'm not sure that equates to a specific practice that I do, but again, just I guess sort of being open to everything, including the pauses and yeah, balance. I think that's my practice of balance. Maybe I'll put it that way. My spiritual practice is trying to achieve balance.

Crystal: I love that. All the good that life offers us. Now when you write that book…

Jane Ellen: Okay. Well, I need to post another blog post I haven't posted since some places, so maybe I will work on something on balance. That sounds great.

Crystal: Well, thanks again for being a guest on “Get Your Spirit in Shape.” It was just a delight to have you here.

Jane Ellen: Oh, thank you so much, Crystal. I've enjoyed getting to chat with you and talk a little bit more about thin places.

Epilogue

That was the Reverend Jane Ellen Nickell discussing thin places and how to discover these sacred spaces in our own lives. To learn more, go to umc.org/podcast and look for this episode where you will find helpful links and a transcript of our conversation. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at a special email address just for “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listeners: [email protected]. If you enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to leave a review on the podcast platform where you listen. Thank you for taking the time to join us on "Get Your Spirit in Shape." I'm Crystal Caviness and i look forward to the next time that we're together.