It’s a Wonderful Life has an UNDESERVED reputation of being an old sappy black and white Christmas Movie…
but it isn’t saccharine. Instead, it’s a longest night kind of film…
The main character, George Baley,
runs into disaster atop disaster,
doubts assail him and he is driven to the point of suicide
on a bridge modeled after the one in Califon
—he wonders aloud if the world would be better off without him…
into this despair, Clarence, his guardian angel, swoops in,
not to save him—in a traditional sense anyway,
but to give him what he wants,
a vision of the world without George Baley.
It’s
a movie Lisa and I try to watch every year around Christmas.
A few weeks back, we saw a “Radio Play” version of it at the Shakespeare
Theater.
And at some point in that dark theater
(because I’m a Theologian and can’t turn that part of my brain off),
I had an Aha! George Baley entered a
thin place!
What
do I mean by that? Well, within Celtic Christianity, there is a concept of “Thin
Places”
places where the veil between heaven and earth are thinner.
Where God and humans are just a
little closer together,
the divine and ordinary, meet in extraordinary
ways.
Places sparking with potential, demanding reverence, awe inspiring and awful!
These
are places of immense beauty,
or overwhelming intense emotion
—lush forests, monasteries, and pagan shrines even.
Often
times these thin places are also high places, mountains.
For example, Elijah encounters the still small voice on mount Horeb,
the book of Genesis is littered with Shrines erected on high places.
My
own experience of an obvious thin place was visiting Har Meggito (literally
the Hill of Witness)
—from which we derive the word Armageddon.
It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site,
an archaeological dig that includes multi-layered ruins of religious structures
—a mosque atop a church atop a synagogue atop a pagan shrine.
(Clearly I wasn’t the only one who sensed the gossamer veil between heaven
and earth there.)
Yes,
Thin Places are often found on the heights…
but there are also similar encounters in the night and in the depths…
Think of Abraham’s dark dream where he encounter’s God a flame in the mist of
slaughter, and similarly Jacob wrestling on the Jabok river with A
man/Angel/God…
or Moses chased and hunted down by God until he agrees to circumcision, or less
obscure,
the people of God backed up against the Red Sea as Pharoah bears down on them…
Yes,
Thin places can kiss mountainous heights,
but they can also swoop down to the valley below.
Thin places, thin people, thin situations… in the valley.
Prayer
In the valley.
Ezekiel
is brought down into the valley, among dry bones
—bodies of slaughtered priests and the destroyed remnants of his nation
broken after the awful siege of Jerusalem.
Can these bones live?
The
Psalmist sings of the Valley of the Shadow of Death,
sheep, pilgrims, humans living life, traveling through the darkest valley
—the most dangerous leg of their pilgrimage journey.
Will they make it to green pastures and the house of the Lord?
While
Matthew insists that Jesus speaks from the heights
(Matthew needs us to know Jesus is a sort of New Moses giving a new law)
—he is speaking to those in the valley of affliction,
Down there in the depths,
Who have suffered sickness and ailments,
torments and possession,
gathered there to be healed.
Can they be blessed?
These
valleys too, are surely thin places:
-places near to possibility,
places of anticipation.
-situations of salvation
and breath and reknitting and life and the Spirit’s return,
like at the moment of creation!
Isn’t that right Ezekiel?
-places we can sing Psalms
about
—where there is a holy flow to life,
and rest at the end.
-people who are blessed,
finding comfort and mercy,
inheritance and the face of God
outlined in light, heaven meeting earth.
These
Longest Nights…
like George Baley’s night on that Califon Bridge… are Thin Places too!
These times allowing for mourning,
grieving changes of all sorts.
These
nights when we seem out of synch with the upbeat tempo of the season,
because we acknowledge the ragged discomforts of our own thinness…
“stretched like butter scraped over too much bread.”
These nights can be strained
to the breaking point,
but somehow there is an opening in them too
—night’s dimness meets the clarity of day.
Tomorrow won’t be the longest night, only the second longest…
Think of Mary, heavily
pregnant, traveling to Bethlehem…
pregnancy is surely a long night,
steeped in anticipation,
two worlds and possibilities a hairs breathe away…
Then the birth of the one who will be called God Among Us. A new day!
In this liminal time and
space that we’re in together tonight,
we are pressed up against that curtain between heaven and earth.
Terrible awe, anticipation, potential—all swirl around us here.
I pray that
-our dry bones will receive Spirit,
-our shadowy journey will be led by a Shepherd,
-and our afflictions will be embraced by blessing.
Amen.
