Thin Places

This morning the Class of 2012 gathered in Leonard Auditorium for the Orientation Sunday Service of Worship. Students are not required to attend, but about 380 of the 415 class members chose to do so. They sang the hymns and enjoyed the jazz musings of Willy and David Bruenner '10. I used this service to introduce students to three things: 1) the importance of being open to this new experience they are embarking upon, 2) the fact that they are not alone as they make their way; they are surrounded by a supportive community and a God who loves them, and, 3) the concept of blessing.

John O'Donohue's To Bless The Space Between Us is a superb collection of blessings that reflect O'Donohue's Celtic sensibilities. My first exposure to his writings occurred during a spiritual pilgrimage to Connemara in the western part of County Galway in Ireland. Connemara (the Irish spell it Conamara, as O'Donohue does in his Conamara Blues) is one of those landscapes that is for me a "thin place." The Celts say that "heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places that distance is even smaller." I pray that this campus will become such a place for those who pass this way, and I welcome the opportunity to hear about your thin places.

Comments

[Charles D. Barrett]

I've been delinquent about following developments on the Wofford web site, Ron, so I'm 'most a year late reading your blogs (assuming that term has a plural). Thanks for your reflections and the elegance with which you express them. My only disappointments are two: first, that there are only two entries and, second, that there've been no comments on them, indicating, I suapect, that others have been as oblivious to their existence as I have.

Thanks for your effective ministry to the Wofford community, including this attempt to spark a conversation in the wider connection the internet makes possible.

C.D. Barrett, '55

[sto beta]

Everyone has their weak areas, everyone has their own do not want to found a world, we can try to open this place, to give them greater happiness.