My father died in 1993, but Cousin Jim talked to him three years ago. Jim retired from careers in human resource management and college teaching. Jim is one of the most rational and thoughtful people I know. And he’s had diabetes since he was 16.

On the day Jim talked with my dad, he was home alone. His wife Linda was out shopping. Knowing his blood sugar was low, Jim was in the kitchen headed toward orange juice in the refrigerator when he collapsed and lost consciousness.

He estimated that he was on the floor for three minutes before Linda arrived and revived him. During those moments,

I went to a very crowded place. Lots of people of all
Different races and ethnicities wait in a crowded line.
I got in line, and gradually, we moved ahead to what I can only describe as
Gates. At the gates, I was met by your dad. He told me that I must go back.
“Your work is not done,” he told me in a commanding voice.

Three years later, Jim considers this event one of the most vivid of his life. He says today that my father’s words were explicit and directed at him. And that they influenced the way he lives. Jim’s experience was as natural to him as the orange juice Linda used to bring him back from where he was. Linda still thinks it was low blood sugar, period.

What do I believe? The late theologian Marcus Borg wrote in The Heart of Christianity of thin places “as anywhere our hearts are open.” A thin place can be religious, for example, a sermon, or secular, like nature.

Several days ago, at 5:16 am in southwest Iowa, I took this photo of the quarter moon that had just become visible behind clouds and trees. Borg said thin places can be anywhere.

But we have to look.

When we see, we connect to something beyond ourselves. Borg calls it “The More.”

You might call it something else.

For me, seeing is believing.

And believing is becoming.