For Advent.
Sacred Time, Thin Spaces, and Ruins
by Bev Vanderwell
They say thin spaces
where the divine and the tangible
are as close as they can be
where the distance between heaven and earth
collapses
and we are able to catch glimpses of the infinite.
I have seen them, experienced them,
when my kids were born;
when I held my mom’s slowly cooling hand as she left this world for the next;
when we sang Great is thy Faithfulness as we encircled my father-in-law as he breathed his last ragged breath
before he embraced his savior
and Jesus said, “Welcome Home.”
They say sacred time
is the intersection
between temporal time and eternity,
this time when we are so keenly aware of God’s presence with us,
Emmanuel.
I have experienced this,
when I knelt beside my bed in high school
in full realization for the first time
all that I had learned
by my parents, church, and camp
was real, good, and true,
and I wanted it for myself;
when I experienced the beauty of our vows and such forgiveness that I understood Grace more than ever before;
when I took a walk in Riverside park
to bare my soul to God
so I could receive forgiveness, restoration, and renewal after a long, stubborn streak;
when I surrendered the life of a loved one deeply struggling with depression
into the gently strong and forever able arms of Jesus
because I didn’t know how it would turn out,
but I knew I couldn’t hold it all–yet He could.
They say Ruins
are at first discarded, forgotten, and seen as broken—but later treasured–
their value increasing in each passing era;
their fracturing not a fault anymore, but a feature
because we see in them
a fragility of our own achievements.
We could use ruins now more than ever
for we see in them a reminder
of how short our time is, how fleeting are the things of this world
that all too often pull our hearts and minds away from our true purpose
to slowly and faithfully store up treasures in heaven.
In God’s perfect timing all will be restored.
In Advent we wait, not in anxiousness,
but joyful participation.
During sacred time, in thin spaces, in the midst of ruins,
look for Jesus.
He is there, and He is coming again
so that you can see what you could not see before
so that you can glimpse the eternal in the midst of the temporary
until we live it permanently.
(my poem deeply influenced and excerpted from CCCA’s Advent Project day 1 video–from 2022)