Entering the Thin Places

Where the veil is thin between heaven and earth

It’s dark and foggy most mornings when we walk the children to school, and you can almost see it, the presence of the other world hovering above this one. This has been my favorite time of year since I was a little girl—who doesn’t love the wonderful cascade from holiday to holiday that these months bring us? There’s so much to look forward to, and the gorgeous fall leaves are the cherry on top of all that cozy warmth and feasting.

But I love this season for another reason now—for the thin places that abound in these chilly days. All of nature is preparing for a long slumber that looks a lot like death, but the church calendar, which designates November as the month of the holy souls, reminds us that death is really just another kind of life.

“Vita mutatur, non tollitor,” my dear friend texted me when we lost Ellen earlier this year. “Life is changed, not ended.” I texted it back to her not too long ago when she lost her beloved father-in-law.

At the end of our street is a cemetery, a big Catholic one with rolling hills and statues of angels and the saints. I pass by it dozens of times a week. I like having it here, close to me. I remember when we first moved into this house, almost seven years ago, and I was just beginning to learn about the month of the holy souls. It just made so much sense to me, that all life carries on in an unbroken continuum, that the soul is eternal, that the human story echoes in those who came before us, that it shimmers brightly in those who will come after us.

The month of the holy souls reminds me to repudiate what I think of as temporal superiority—the idea that because we are the humans that happen to be drawing breath at this moment, we matter more than those who preceded us or will follow us, the idea that we are somehow more real than they are.

When I trek up the hill to school pickup or stand waiting in a grocery line, I like to think about God encompassing all of time in God’s hands. I like to think of God cradling every generation, from the very beginning all the way past the outer edge of human comprehension, forevermore.

As we remember those we love and miss terribly this month, I hope that in the fog, in the fall shadows, we might feel their presence, their hands reaching out to us through the veil.

Here is a prayer I wrote for us a few years ago that I like to return to each year.

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A Few Hopeful Things:

-I’m off to DC this morning to attend the Ignatian Family Teach-in for Justice, and I am SO looking forward to seeing dear friends and having my cup filled with hope by inspiring people working for justice. I’ve seen this conference each year on my social media, and it feels like a dream to finally get to go. I’ll be at the Jesuit Conference booth if you want to come say hi!

-In the evenings when I’m too tired to read, I’ve been watching the final season of Sex Education on Netflix, and boy howdy if it isn’t the big-hearted, profound, and funny wrestling match of humanity, identity, and faith I need these days. I still have one episode left, but I’ve shed so many tears and been moved so deeply already. Highly recommend.

-As I’m preparing for a keynote and some workshops I’ll be giving in November, I’ve been hanging out with some female mystics and reading a lot of poetry. If you haven’t read Naomi Shibab Nye’s poem “Gate A-4,” prepare to have your heart restored.

With you in the thin places,
Cameron