Angels: Invitations to Explore Thin Places

Angels are messengers, beings who bear tidings from God to humans. Thus, they serve as gateways into a deeper experience of God, unpacking the divine and mysterious, and inviting humans into that mystery. “Don’t be afraid” and “Come and see” are invitations to skittish, wary humans who only feel comfortable stepping into their own footprints, stepping exactly where they have set foot before. The angel presence invites exploration beyond the known and comfortable, exploration of the mystery of God. Angels invite others to an experience that is truly other-worldly.

Angels, then, hold this space between the heavenly realm and the earthly realm. This is the space Celtic spirituality calls “thin places” . . . those places and settings where the divine and the ordinary are in such close connection that the veil between this world and heaven is especially thin and transparent. Heaven touches earth. Earth receives heaven.

Angels announce a message that the holy and “spiritual” are hidden within what looks ordinary and insignificant. A baby born to a man and woman in a stable, placed in a cattle trough . . . this very earthy event explodes with meaning and significance . . . and is an event that changes the trajectory of human history. Angels proclaim the holy history hidden within ordinary events.

Being in touch with my own angel-within means seeing ordinary events as holy history (nothing is common and ordinary) and then bearing or heralding that message in my life-world.

To be in touch with the angel within me, I have to find that place inside my being where I notice the deeper, more interior meaning of things. Then, I find ways to proclaim those things in my life-world. These large and small things that happen in the run of life are invitations to notice what God is doing in the world, to attend to the work of God in me, in others, and in the world, and then to somehow let that experience be borne in my own being . . . through proclaiming it with my lips and/or my life.

The significant moments – big and small – which shift my interior life-stance are most often not noticed in the moment, for they seem much too ordinary or mundane . . . a conversation with a friend . . . the closing of a door that I wanted badly to be opened . . . the move to another job or another city . . . the moving away from home of children or grandchildren. These things that happen, whether grand or tiny, are what we might label “God-moments” or “God-experiences” – and usually we only call them by those names in hindsight, because they seem so ordinary and mundane in the moment.

Angels herald these God-moments or God-experiences. They bear the good news that God has been and is still at work in the world. So to connect with the angel within me, I must cultivate the capacity to see God’s action in the world, and then to bear that message to my life-world.

The angel within me is calling others to the mystery, to the good tidings. This is the part of me that is most interested in helping others to see, helping others to experience. So the angel-presence within me is given on behalf of others . . . heralding, announcing, proclaiming, messaging.

For Reflection:

Consider one place or setting you have experienced that you would call a “thin place.” Recall the experience in as much detail as you can that experience . . . what led you to that place or setting? . . . what was your experience in the moment (the people, sights, sounds, etc. involved)? . . . how has your interpretation of that “thin place” experience shifted or evolved over time? Do you have an ongoing sense of invitation today from that experience in the past?