Around a Thin Place

Kierkegaard says "travel, like life, is best understood backward but must be experienced forward."

I've been contemplating the idea of thin places.  The past several months I have seen a number of references to thin places, in travel articles, essays written by candidates for bishop, and books which have caught my attention and piqued my interest.

Thin places are locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and one is able to catch glimpses of the divine.

It is thought that the words "thin places" were first heard in the Celtic world- Ireland, Scotland.  They were used to describe the wind-swept isle of Iona.  Heaven and earth, the Celtic saying goes, are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance is even shorter.  Thin places can transform one.

                                           Iona Abbey  


To get to Iona--
     
     By plane,by  car, and by ferry

    Atlanta to Amsterdam to Glasgow, by plane;
    Glasgow to Oban, driving on the "wrong" side of the road;
    Oban to Craignure, by ferry;
    Craignure across the Isle of Mull to Fionphort, by car
    Fionphort to Iona by ferry.