Ffald-y-Brenin | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

“Thin Places,” Where the Boundaries between the Spiritual and Physical Worlds are Almost Transparent

sunset_calf_sound_7 Celtic Christians prized “thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. Where we can sense shimmering in the physical world the just-as-real, invisible, supernatural world, charged with the glory of God, with hills ringed with angels in chariots of fire.

Could God really be more present in one place than in another? I wondered until I slowed down, calmed down, and began to experience the presence of God pushing though, and thin places.

* * *

Thin places—near mountains, rivers, streams, meadows, the sea—are, in fact, often places where people have worshipped and sought God for centuries. The air around beaches, waterfalls and mountains is rich in brain-activity boosting, depression-banishing negative ions. Benedictines and Trappists often built their monasteries in such places.

Is it fanciful to suppose that places in which thousands have prayed would attract the spirit of God—and angelic presences?

Perhaps what happens in a pilgrimage spot is not that God descends to earth in a shower of radiance and the earth ever after exudes his fragrance. Perhaps it is we who sanctify spots of earth when we bring our weary spirits, our thwarted hopes, the whole human freight of grief, and pray—our eyes grown wide and trusting; our being, a concentrated yearning. Perhaps that yearning, that glimpse of better things, attracts the spirit of God, and traces of that encounter linger in the earth and air and water so that future pilgrims say, “God is here.”

* * *

I felt that when we visited Ffald-y-Brenin. There was a peace and holiness in the air. I could sense the presence of God in the stillness and especially around the high cross, placed on the highest hill of the retreat centre towering over the countryside.

I gave up analysing it after a while. I surrendered to the peace. As Eliot says in “Little Gidding,”

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

That peace, a sudden clarity of thinking and creativity? I guess I could call it the spirit of God.

Healing hung in the air. Looking back at my post written there, I see I was praying for healing from self-induced adrenal fatigue. Well, seven months later, it was completely gone, and I was gulping down books again, and writing a lot.

***

Just being by the ocean, watching it, listening to the roar of the waves quietens me, reminds me of immensity, of God’s infinite power, and opens me up to his spirit. I suddenly find myself praying in tongues. I pick up God’s guidance and directives most clearly on beach walks.

And, as all cultures at all times have noticed, mountains are specially charged with the presence of God. They are places for peace, serenity, and elevated thoughts. In the mountains, my thoughts instinctively gravitate to God.

* * *

And, of course, in our own homes and lives, places become thin because we often pray there.

I pray face down in my bedroom, soaking prayer, and the accustomed place and posture probably more quickly tunes my spirit to peace.

I also enjoy walking and praying in the fields around my house for I live in the country. Again the accustomed routine of walking and praying makes me feel happy and exhilarated and, within a short time, I find myself praying in tongues.

Thomas Merton writes about cultivating routines of prayer at the same place, and at about the same time, “My chief joy is to escape to the attic of the garden house and the little broken window that looks out over the valley. There in the silence, I love the green grass. The tortured gestures of the apple trees have become part of my prayer…. So much do I love this solitude that when I walk out along the road to the old barns that stand alone, delight begins to overpower me from head to foot, and peace smiles even in the marrow of my bones.”

* * *

Just we can feel stressed and uneasy by subliminal triggering memories of past trauma in certain places, or in the presence of certain people, our spirits can also swiftly be tuned to peace in places in which we have often experienced God’s spirit, on a particular seat in church, or on a particular country walk.

Working in my own garden is a thin place for me. Sooner or later, joy returns. Sooner or later, I find myself praying, often in tongues.

Another thin place for me is tidying up. I restore my soul as I restore my house. My body works, and feels happy working, but my mind is fallow. Clarity comes as I work, ideas. Peace returns, and I find myself praying…

* * *

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“Thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. From @anitamathias1

Thin Places: Where the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is almost transparent

By Anita Mathias

The High Cross at Fflad-y-Brenin

Could God really be more present in one place than in another? I wondered until I slowed down, calmed down, and began to experience thin places.

* * *

Thin places—near mountains, rivers, streams, meadows, the sea—are, in fact, often places where people have worshipped and sought God for centuries. Benedictines and Trappists often built their monasteries in such places.

Is it fanciful to suppose that places in which thousands have prayed would attract the spirit of God—and angelic presences?

* * *

I gave up analysing it after a while. I surrendered to the peace. As Eliot says in “Little Gidding,”

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid.

That peace, a sudden clarity of thinking and creativity? I guess I could call it the spirit of God.

***

* * *

And, of course, in our own homes and lives, places become thin because we often pray there.

I pray face down in my bedroom, soaking prayer, and the accustomed place and posture probably more quickly tunes my spirit to peace.

* * *

Working in my own garden is a thin place for me. Sooner or later, joy returns. Sooner or later, I find myself praying, often in tongues.

* * *

How about you? What are the thin places in which you most powerfully experience God’s spirit?

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“Thin places,” where the boundaries between the spiritual and physical world are almost transparent. From @anitamathias1

From our retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin, Pembrokeshire, Wales

By Anita Mathias

Enjoying our retreat at Ffald-y-Brenin in Pemrokeshire National Park in Wales.

It was running at full occupancy, and as Roy Godwin explains in his book, The Grace Outpouring,when there is a rumour that Jesus is to be found there, it draws crowds.

The place has been soaked in prayer and blessing, as Roy Godwin says, and there is something in the air. Our daughters had been given the bigger rooms with the bed and chairs facing the window, whereas we had the smaller room, with the bed and chairs facing away. Not good for someone who loves to read and write in bed facing a window. I wanted to swap rooms. A mini-tantrum ensued.

I tried blessing. “X, I know you are going to surprise us all with how good and kind and loving and understanding you are going to be.”

She pouted, but never mentioned it again, whereas normally, she would have persisted and pressed until she got her own way. Magic in the air, huh? The girls seems to be enjoying a mixture of prayer, Bible reading, and their own secular reading, and study, in Zoe’s case.

There is healing and faith in the air. I prayed for healing for the adrenal fatigue which I had suffered from for several years, since the early years of my marriage really, and perhaps before that. Its main sign was a severely diminished reading speed (from the days in which I could gulp down a book a day, and sit reading for pretty much 12 -14 hours at a stretch, which I used to do until my mid-twenties, very unhealthy).

Somehow, I felt I had been healed of this, and was surprised at how rapidly I was reading again. I am reading a fairly dense but well-written readable book, Diarmaid MacCullough’s history of Christianity, rapidly and with great enjoyment. Of course, being self-conscious about reading speed and techniques is like watching oneself play the piano or touch-type. You will be watching yourself rather than immersing yourself in flow, and that will slow you down!

Normally, when I have the opportunity to pray for extended periods of time, I have an agenda. I seek God’s wisdom for this, blessing for that, direction for this…

This time, I just wanted to hang out, and see what he might have to say to me. God has been very kind to me over the last couple of years in terms of guidance and vision, and this time I wanted to pray

Search me, Oh Lord, and know my heart

Try me and know my anxious thoughts

I asked God to show me what he might see in me which he’d want me to change.

He pointed out a detail. Ouch!

· * *

The one sure thing about God is that He is a giver. He is generous. He loves to give to those who slow down enough to receive—love to gives blessings, guidance, vision, wisdom. What James says is really true—if anyone lacks wisdom, he would turn to God who giveth to all generously.

One area God spoke to me was about reading Scripture, and I am going to return to my old habit of reading 5 chapters a day from today.

Another was about writing down the things I hear him say immediately rather than make a note to blog about them later. I am becoming distinctly middle-aged, and sometimes forget the depth of vision behind these scribbled noted.

Some days, in which I am receptive, I might hear God speak several times, and say several things. Other days, when I am dry, distracted, obsessive, hassled, I might not hear anything. So it would be good to cultivate the blog stack. And writing down things as I hear them, or divine them, or sense them, would mean I would have a blog stack without needing to spend the hour a day I spend on blogging (which means I could spend the extra hour to return to writing books, which is where my heart really is).

There is one area of my life in which I lack wisdom—I simply don’t know what to do!! I spent a couple of hours praying about this issue. If Jesus was here, in the flesh, and I asked him what to do about it., I am sure he would tell me. It’s a good desire, after his will. So, perhaps it just takes faith and receptivity to be able to hear God’s guidance, when Jesus is not here in the flesh.

I think we have a lot more wisdom and guidance at our disposal that we don’t avail ourselves of because we do not slow down. So I did, slowed down, about this long-standing question mark and puzzlement in my life, and felt I heard God speak and tell me what to do. More later…

And so I have had 3 days without any internet, or mobile phones. Loved it. Today however, the intensity got too much, and we drove into town to reacquaint ourselves with social media–twitter, blogs, facebook et. al.

But I learnt something–how MUCH one can read and write when the internet is switched off. I am going to turn it off for periods when we get home.

“If God doesn’t tell you to do anything, then why are you doing things? Why not just sit at his feet?”

By Anita Mathias

I am reading, “The Grace Outpouring: Blessing Others Through Prayer. The Amazing Story of God’s Work at Ffald-y-Brenin” by Roy Godwin. Ffald-y-Brenin is a retreat centre in Pembrokeshire National Park, Wales. Roy, Zoe, Irene and I spent a blessed 5 days there in December.

Roy and his wife Daphne, out of their own brokenness, feel called to a retreat centre in Pembrokeshire. They stumble upon the simple act of blessing everyone who comes to them, blessing the valley, blessing the nearby towns. This simple act unleashes miracles–the farmers’ yields go up, the livestock have multiple births, B & B’s win awards, long-submerged streams start flowing. But they don’t seek to convict or convert, just to bless.

* * *

As his retreat centre prospers, and there are miracles, healings and deliverances from oppression, as people encounter the presence of God there, other people come wanting to know his “method.”

But he has no method to pass on. Roy Godwin writes, “The key is searching for God, learning to listen for his voice, burrowing into his heart, listening to what he says, and then doing it, however simple or complex it might be.

If He says it, do it. If He doesn’t tell you to do anything, then why are you doing things? Why not just sit at his feet?”

I love this.

* * *

Because sometimes, God puts you in a place in which learning to hear his voice is absolutely vital and crucial for you. A matter of health and sanity.

For me, as I’ve blogged before, I reached the stage where hearing the voice of God was vital for my life in 2006-2007, when we put both girls into an expensive private school, Oxford High School, and bought our dream house.

It rapidly became obvious that I would need to bring in real money, but how? I had taught Creative Writing at the College of William and Mary before, and found teaching was incompatible with writing, and too great a drain on my energy.

Write rapidly? In retrospect, I wish I had tried that–there have been books knocked off to pay for parent’s funerals (Johnson’s Rasselas) to pay off debts (Dostoevsky’s), but I didn’t have the faith or the energy.

Instead, I decided to start a business. I have three college and university degrees, but all in English and Creative Writing. What an amazing background to start a business with, right?

My first business attempt was exhausting and time-consuming. It was fun (selling antiquarian books) but definitely not sustainable for someone who loves leisure, reading and writing.

And so, as in Psalm 107, I had to continually cry out to the Lord in my distress, because I was SO tired, and SO overwhelmed, and life was SO hard. And he responded by removing the burden from my shoulders, setting my hands free from the basket. He gave me a sustainable idea–publishing the very antiquarian books which were so in demand when I put them up on auction on Ebay.

And that enterprise was greatly blessed because (as far as I could tell), it came from God’s brain, not mine.

* * *

So I stumbled upon the vital importance of what Roy Godwin says, “Searching for God, learning to listen for his voice, burrowing into his heart, listening to what he says…

I do set aside long hours, mostly on holiday (luckily the rest of my family have more hiking and swimming energy than I have) to seek God’s face, rest in his presence, to run through the details of my life with him, checking in with him about them, seeking his wisdom and guidance and correction on what I am currently doing, and seeking his guidance for the future.

* * *

Now I need to work on the second part of this paragraph, which leapt out at me last night. “If he doesn’t tell you to do anything, then why are you doing things? Why not just sit at his feet?” Indeed!! That is the other part of our life which needs to be put through the sieve when in the presence of God.

The things that are draining and sapping you, did God tell you to do them? No? Then just stop. Why not just sit at his feet and wait?

We need to have drastically pruned lives to bear fruit.

* * *

And so, I am increasingly putting my life through the sieve of God’s will.

What does he want me to do in each area of my life? And what I am currently doing which he never told me to do? And this includes innocuous things, good things, helpful things–but which, however, are not things that God told me to do.