The Thin Spaces Between Us
“Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world awaits.” — John O’Donohue
I recently returned from several days in Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon co-facilitating a Bounce Travels Retreat focused on professional well-being. Spending time among the towering canyon walls, impossible colors, ancient rock formations, and uncommonly star-lit night skies frequently stopped us in our tracks. There were moments when the ordinary boundaries of life seemed somehow less substantial, when something beyond what could be seen or explained felt unusually near. The Celtic spiritual tradition has given us a beautiful expression for experiences like these: thin places.
Thin places are often described as places where the distance between the ordinary and the sacred seems especially small and the “veil” separating what we can see from something larger becomes almost transparent. Certain landscapes seem particularly capable of inviting this experience. And yet, during our days together on retreat, it became quite evident to me that thin places aren't necessarily places at all. They can also happen between people.
Indeed, spending focused time among colleagues who risked saying something that profoundly mattered to them or revealing something deeply personal stopped us in our tracks, too: when a question lingered long enough for a more honest answer to emerge; when laughter lubricated resistance and tears dissolved heaviness; when someone felt sufficiently brave to let tender parts of themselves be seen and others responded not by fixing or advising, but simply by staying present and holding space for them. The extraordinary landscape may have helped create the conditions, but the thinness was happening among us. In these moments, the usual distance between one human being and another became smaller.
Perhaps that is one of the quiet gifts of intentional connection. Most of our days are necessarily lived in “thicker” spaces. We move quickly. We perform our roles. We busily attend to what needs doing. We protect parts of ourselves that feel safer left unspoken. But every once in a while, something interrupts all of that. Awe. Beauty. Vulnerability. Laughter. Grief. Silence. Someone who listens without needing us to be different. And suddenly the space between us becomes more permeable. We remember that underneath our titles, responsibilities, and carefully tended identities are simply human beings longing to know and to be known.
This week, consider your relationship with your PeerRx partner or another trusted colleague. When have you experienced a moment when the usual distance between you seemed to disappear and something deeper became possible? And what might help make room for more moments like that, not by forcing them, but simply by creating the conditions in which they might emerge? Thin places may certainly be found among the sandstone cliffs of Zion or the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon, but you don’t have to travel to find them. They can be found right now, in the space between us.