Sanctuary

Monasteries, cathedrals, and churches have always been sanctuaries, safe places where the endangered seek refuge; holy sites where pilgrims seek God.

The early Celtic believers described these sanctuaries as ‘thin places’; places where heaven and earth meet, where the gap between the temporal and the eternal is gossamer thin - where the voice of God is sought and heard.

But these Celtic ‘thin places’ were often not in man-made buildings, but rather in God-chosen locations such as the island of Iona in Scotland or Holy Island in the North of England.

Pilgrims still visit these ‘thin places’ to find sanctuary and find God. But most of us can’t visit Scottish islands or European monasteries. What we need is a local sanctuary, a personal sanctuary, a thin place in our own life, a place where we meet God on a daily basis.

It doesn’t have to be grand. It could be a favourite chair, the corner of a balcony, or simply the indentations in the carpet where we kneel each day. In his book, Finding Sanctuary, Christopher Jamison calls this daily discipline “…a portable sanctuary…”or, “…an act of sanctuary…”

Do you make time for a daily act of sanctuary?

Can you describe the thin places in your life?

Have you ever intentionally been on pilgrimage to a holy place?

Do you realize that, as a temple of the Holy Spirit, you are also a place of sanctuary – wherever you are?

Robert