Intimacy, Fear, and Thin Places 6 comments

By Lindsey Crittenden

The first time I went to church as an adult just because it was Sunday, I sat in a back pew and kept my arms crossed and criticized everything I saw. The words in the prayer book (such outlandish claims!); the hokey quilted banner hanging above the altar (such tacky taste!); the friendliness of the fellow parishioners (were they going to try to pressure me to join?)—yes, I was scared stiff and more than a little defensive. And then the priest, in her sermon, read from a poem by Rilke, a poem about the Annunciation:

Just she and he—see, this arouses fear. Such fear both knew. Then he sang out and made his tidings known.

She: Mary. He: Gabriel. Me: In tears.

I’d never heard intimacy so beautifully, so accurately described.

That poem led me to recognize what Marcus Borg calls “thin places,” those moments where the membrane between the divine and the human becomes a little more porous, where we are opened to the Holy Spirit.

I was reminded of thin places last week, when I gave a talk on faith and creativity. I shared the podium with my friend Eva, a painter and a Buddhist, who showed slides of her own work as well as some of her inspirations. One was of a Fra Angelico Annunciation, Gabriel’s words in Latin streaming out from his mouth in gold leaf, Mary gracefully receiving their startling information—what Eva called, as she talked about the painterly influence, the "irradiation of the divine."

Thin places in my life have come unbidden, shoving all preconceptions aside. Two recent events come to mind.

A few weeks ago, in church, I watched a priest bless a marriage. Two men, whom I’ll refer to as M and B, stood at the altar. I’d never seen this before, although I live in San Francisco and worship at a parish that supports gay marriage. It was a startling sight, reminding me of a photo I'd seen a decade ago when I attended a neighborhood potluck. The hosts that night, two women, had on their bookshelf, in a silver frame, a photo from their recent commitment ceremony: Nan in a frothy dress out of Bride’s magazine, Katherine in a tuxedo. At worst it seemed a mockery, at best camp or child’s play. I couldn’t get past the dress-up to the happiness in their smiles.

M and B, however, had dressed as they always do, albeit a bit more formally, which allowed me to focus not on their clothing but the backs of their heads, suddenly as vulnerable and tender-looking as the babies’ that had been baptized earlier in the service. And that’s when it struck me: Two individuals, completely open and vulnerable to each other. Regardless of whether the sight brings sorrow, disturbance, or joy, the fact remains that these two men were taking a serious step, making a huge commitment.

Maybe this sounds like a big du-uh, as my nephew says when I state the obvious. People have been taking this serious step for centuries, and I haven’t been struck by it. But because M and B were men, they got my attention.

“Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, to be faithful to him as long as you both shall live?”

I couldn’t help imagining the doors bursting open with protesters, which leant another level of attention to my consciousness. But what struck me wasn’t whether or not these words were being used rightly or wrongly, but the thin place they’d opened in front of me, separate from controversy. I observed as I never had the fragile humanity of any two people taking these vows. I felt it. This wasn’t a game, a lark, a political salvo: this was intimacy—on full, arresting display. See, this arouses fear, Rilke wrote. Mine, theirs, ours.

And then, another day, I sat in on one of my nephew’s voice lessons. I’ve heard him sing countless times, and as much as I marvel at the voice he’s been given, the beauty of which he is capable, this boy I have helped to raise and whom I adore—well, I wasn’t expecting much.

I know very little about music, and even less about the mechanics of singing. But, as the teacher stopped him at a place in the song where an “e” makes the transition from one word to the next, dropping from a high note to a low and segueing into the next syllable while keeping the words distinct, I was transfixed.

He did not do a perfect job. He was learning. She stopped him several times, and he tried again and again. They seemed the center of the world, the hub around which everything spun. Two people making something, Dylan with his voice, Oksana with her hands on the piano; two people focused on a syllable of sound, the smallest unit of communication, which—whatever it meant to the narrative of the aria—also meant nothing more than pure sound. They were giving it their all, getting it right; they were completely alive and open, completely themselves. And yet they existed outside of themselves, too, as part of something larger, part of what I would call the holy. Their focus, their intent, their intimacy: two people, a piano, notes on a page written hundreds of years ago by an Italian composer. Just she and he indeed.

In this way, art—and love—is made.