A Shining Moment

The first time I saw it was in the summer of 1965.  I was eleven-years-old.  It took us nearly three hours to get there, my dad, my brother Doug, and me. It was the longest ride of my life.  I had pictures of it; I had seen images of it on our black and white television set. But I had never been there before.  On a hot and muggy July afternoon in 1965 that all changed.

The intersection of Michigan Ave. and Trumbull Blvd. in the heart of Detroit was not the kind of place a boy from the corner of 37^th and Columbia in Holland could easily absorb. It was a little scary. But all that was transformed, transfigured if you will, the moment we walked inside that venerable place known for over a hundred years as Tiger Stadium.  The house that Ty Cobb built.

I remember walking through the dark concourse, past the indoor concessions of hot dogs stands, climbing what seemed a thousand steps, and finally walking through the gate that led to our seats. 

I recall beholding for the first time the ball field where Kaline and Cash and Horton played.  For the longest time, I stood in the aisle before getting to my seat, not wanting to sit down.  Just taking it all in. I had never seen grass that green.  Perfectly cut and manicured. Not a single dandelion. Caulk lines straight as straight could be, stretching to infinity from home plate to the corners of left and right field.  Bases so white they dazzled. Home uniforms so bright they seemed brand new.

And the seats, so many seats, 53,000 seats.  Lower deck and upper deck wrapped around the stadium. 360 degrees.  A circle of dark green.  Everywhere.   For the longest time nobody said anything.  Didn’t have to. It was one of those extended glorious moments that seemed suspended somewhere between heaven and earth.  If my feet were on the ground, I surely didn’t know it.   

The Irish have a name for such locales and the experiences that happen there.  Since the fifth century the Celts have called them thin places. Thin places are the places where it is believed the veil or curtain separating heaven and earth is the thinnest; the place where the veil between this world and the next is so sheer that it is easy to step through, as easy as the ball players in the movie A Field of Dreams could step off the ball field into the Iowa corn field and disappear.  Thin places.                                                            

Cemeteries are thin places. Battlegrounds like Gettysburg are thin places too.  Ground zero where the Trade Towers once stood is such a place. Rooms that cradle those who are passing from this life to the next and intensive care waiting rooms are thin places too. So is the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I would add Hopi Point on the southern rim of the Grand Canyon.  Klise Chapel any time of the day or night is a thin place.  Family cottages and cabins can be such places.  So too a rickety old rowboat on a smooth-as-glass lake.  Or a backyard patio on a starry night.  All of them are places where the veil between this world and the next is whispery-thin. 
           

Thin places are ports through which we can move closer to God, that lead to satisfying the hungers and yearnings we share in common with all people -- to rest our bodies, renew our spirits, to connect to something greater than ourselves...to be awake, to feel loved, to find peace. To take in the nourishment we are offered so that we may turn and feed those around us who are hungry in body, mind, and spirit.

The Transfiguration of Jesus was a thin place.  I can’t explain it, I don’t know how.  Whether it happened in way that it could have been recorded on video for future playback, or whether is happened merely in the minds of the disciples in attendance, I can’t say for sure.  I’m not entirely certain what difference the Transfiguration makes for you and me.  We’re still going to have to shovel snow tomorrow.  The Dow Jones will continue with its gut-wrenching gyrations.  And Super Tuesday may or may not make the choices clearer. 

For Jesus, the Transfiguration clarified his own identity as the beloved One of God, and it prepared him in that beloved identity to return to a battered and bruised world, to a world which in a few weeks would demand his life, demand that he die. 

The questions of the ancient stories always come down to personal ones. Who will you and I become and what will you and I do when we come down from those thin places?  When we have been close enough to the presence of God what difference will our living make?  Whose life will be better because we were here?  Whose burdens are lighter because we help carry the load.  How will we choose to live the hyphen between the day or our birth and the day of our death?  Who will we befriend or defend when no one else will?

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life, deadlines and commitments. Offering his guests fresh brewed coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned
with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite -telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

When all his former students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken first, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that can the source of your problems and stress.  Be assured, continued the professor, that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups.
           

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