Thin Spots
Places where nature and divinity tend to overlap.
Every couple of years, my wife’s family likes to go on a family vacation during the summer. While planning vacation, one of the first questions is always, “mountains or the beach?” This is never a tough decision for me. The beach is fine. I like it. Whales are probably my favorite animal, seafood is my favorite food. The beach is great. But, it’s not the mountains. My heart and my soul respond to the mountains like no other place. They are my place of rest, and they are where I find God the most often.
Maybe it’s cliche, I don’t know. Dude from Texas likes to go to Colorado to look at mountains. A story as old as Texas itself, I guess. But I’ll own it. I am convinced that the veil between creation and divinity is just thinner in the mountains. And I think I have Biblical precedent for that. Not only is it my favorite place, but I think it’s God’s favorite, too.
In the Bible, geography is often used as a way of describing spiritual truths. The seas tell us about chaos, and sin, and death, and the unknown… the deserts tell us about our spiritual need for God’s guidance, provision, sight, presence, and protection… rivers often represent life itself… and the mountains are places where important things happen. That’s what mountains do in the Bible… they host important things… the most important things. The 10 commandments were given on a mountain. The Ark landed on the mountains after the flood. Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on a mountain. Moses died on a mountain. In everywhere but Genesis 1-3 the Garden of Eden is described as a mountain (Ez 28:13-16). Jerusalem sits on a mountain (the same one where Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac). Jesus appoints his Disciples on a mountain. Jesus gave the Beatitudes and his most famous sermon on a mountain. Jesus transfigures on a mountain.Jesus ascended from a mountain and will return on the same mountain. Mountains are mentioned some 570 times in the Bible… for reference the ESV has the word “love” in it 557 times. Mountains are very important to the authors of the Bible. Why? Because mountains are where God does important things. God hangs out there. They are “thin spots” of God’s grace because mountains are where you can get closest to God… like in a literal and physical way. The higher up you are, the closer you are to God where you can talk and listen and receive instruction and direction… they are places where God makes his decrees known and sets his will in motion for the people below. They are symbols of endurance, of permanence, and direction. Like the very God who made them they stay around and are infinitely strong and immovable. They are “thin spots” where humanity and divinity can more closely interact and commune with each other and where the fabric between humans and holiness is just a little thinner. A little more see-through. Where physics and metaphysics get more acquainted with each other. Nothing says, “God exists and is active and is beautiful” quite like how a mountain says it. For more on this, I would highly recommend the Bible Project’s podcast series on mountains in the Bible.
Before moving to Houston (Sugar Land, specifically, for the Houston purists) our family took a trip up to Colorado to spend a week around Rocky Mountain National Park. I got to choose where we went because I won the family fantasy football league, which wasn’t hard to do. All I knew was that before I took on the role of pastor at my church I wanted to be up in the mountains to be with God for a while, even if the whole family came. So I planned it to where I got a whole day just to be alone in the park. And somewhere just off the Red Mountain Trail from the west entrance of the park, I found what I call my “thin spot”. A spot along the river at the base of a mountain where God and I could more closely interact with each other. From that spot I planned my first 6 months of sermons as a pastor, prayed over every congregant by name, and even worked out our church’s vision to Commune with God, Love one another, and Serve the world. I even took a little gray rock which now sits on our church’s communion table as a reminder of God’s presence in both the communion elements and in the mundane elements around us.
God met me there in that spot. It was so impactful, I still think about it today as perhaps my most important spiritual experience after my baptism.
But I keep trying to find more thin spots. I keep trying to chase the nearness I experienced there. The thrill of proximity to divinity. The love of God made tangible. I have been lucky to find a couple more. Every year or so I have been attending the Harbor conference at Pepperdine University with an elder from our church. It’s a refreshing weekend for church leaders and laity alike. In 2024, I decided to skip the morning plenary sessions and hike up the surrounding mountains in search of a thin spot with God. The trail itself was like a metaphor for our church. Somewhere halfway up the trail turns into a large gravel road for a while… very man-made. And if you’re not paying attention, you’ll end up following the man-made gravel road up to a clearing overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It’s beautiful, sure. But the big cross is on the nature trail leading up the mountain, not halfway up on the man-made road. You have to look for the beautiful, more difficult trail that leads to the cross at the top of the mountain… it’s too easy to find a halfway point that’s close enough on a gray, artificial, easy road. This meant a great deal to me. I was 2 years into my pastorate and the honeymoon phase had worn off. If I wasn’t careful, if I wasn’t looking for God’s path, I’d end up making an artificial one that may be beautiful… but it wouldn’t get us up the mountain. So, I found a spot… my Malibu thin spot… overlooking a canyon where the mountains look like they have the imprint of a hand making something out of clay. And I sat there, I prayed, and God met me there again on another mountain.
God spoke to me there about how our church is being formed by him, not by me. It’s not about my effort. We plant, we water… but we don’t grow things, God does. I also took a little rock from this place. I think I’ll put it on the communion table as well.
This past week, my wife and I took our kids, but really ourselves, to Olympic National Park in the peninsula of Washington. It was a heck of a trip (don’t listen to Dave Ramsey, get yourself a good travel credit card and just be responsible with it). My almost-4-year-old is a surprisingly good hiker and my 18-month-old had a slight meltdown while we were on Hurricane Ridge. But again, I planned it to where I’d have one morning to hike in the park by myself. It’s been a stressful year. Church finances, not taking time off that I should have, trying to lead the congregation in “doing more with less” while trying to make it still feel active and useful to the community. Trying to let God do the work he said he would do while up on the mountain in Malibu. Refusing to let it be a man-made thing is surprisingly a lot of work. I needed to find God on another mountain. I needed his voice and presence like in the past. I needed a thin spot of grace.
So on Wednesday of last week, I hiked to the summit of Blue Mountain on the east side of Olympic National Park. It’s not a hard hike, you drive most of the way. But I was the only person there for the better part of 3 hours. The view was amazing at the top, as expected. I went off trail and found a spot on the edge of the drop off, overlooking the town of Sequim where the San Juan Islands and Mount Baker were off to the right in the distance and Victoria, British Columbia was off to the left across the strait. A thin spot. But this time, it was different. There was no 6 months of sermon planning, no praying for 80 people by name, no trail metaphors, no obvious words from God at all. I tried all the tricks… used my Orthodox prayer rope I use all the time, recited many Jesus Prayers, silently asked for wisdom, did some contemplative praying, and just sat in silence on the mountain. I never heard anything. But I felt the company of a friend. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen, but I doubt it, Blue Mountain is only just over 6,000 feet of elevation. No words, just company and rest. At the time I was slightly disappointed, but I think it was exactly what I needed. Being a pastor is lonely. Trying to communicate and lead a different kind of life is lonely. I have my wife and kids, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s also too crowded… lots of people, lots of decisions, lots to learn how to do that you weren’t trained for. Being a pastor is sort of an impossible job. It’s too easy to not pray. It’s too easy to not rest in pursuit of doing a good job, keeping up with people, and writing good sermon material. I’m talking about what Eugene Peterson calls the need to be an unbusy pastor. The need to be someone who does live differently from the demands of schedule and self. To live life in the presence of God rather than making time for the presence of God. A life of rest… paradoxically the hardest kind of life. That’s what I really needed. Rest. I didn’t know it, but now I do, and in his grace that is exactly what God gave me at my thin spot on Blue Mountain.
And yes, I took a rock from here, too. And yes, I’ll put it on the communion table.
God is active and present everywhere. I know you don’t have to leave Houston or your home to experience the presence of God. It’s kind of the whole point of the indwellment of the Holy Spirit and the incarnation of the Son. You don’t have to go up the mountain for God to speak… but man, for me, it sure seems to help. Thin spots never seem to be in my office, in my chair, in my house, or while I’m writing. They’re far away, up high, in the mountains. I see it as a grace to me. They may be hard to get to, but I’ll always know where to find a spot where it’s just a little more mysterious than my normal prayer time. A spot where heaven and earth get a little closer. A spot where I can meet with God and live out the important things.
Wherever you can find that spot, go find it. Don’t be too quick to speak, just listen. Just sit. Just rest. You don’t have to do it all. You were literally created to interact with God, it isn’t supposed to be hard.
Seek, and you will find.
the company of a friend 😭