Braving the Thin Places by Julianne Stanz

 

Title:  Braving the Thin Places: Celtic Wisdom to Create a Space for Grace

Author:  Julianne Stanz

Narrated by:  Remie Michelle Clarke

Publisher: Loyola Press

Length: Approximately 4 hours and 57 minutes

Source: Purchased from Amazon.com. 

Do you have any local authors that you like to read?  I was surprised and happy to learn that an acquaintance was also an author.  I felt called to put together a children’s liturgy program at my church and I taught it for thirteen years.  Author Julianne Stanz’s children were active participants in the program, and I was always happy to see them.  Luckily I didn’t know Stanz’s position in the church or that she was a renowned speaker and writer at the time.   That would have made me nervous!

Braving the Thin Places:  Celtic Wisdom to Create a Space for Grace seemed like a perfect read for both St. Patrick’s Day and the Lenten season.  Braving the Thin Spaces is a beautiful book that really spoke to me.  It discusses our moments of being in a thin place.  What is a thin place?  “Have you ever held a loved one’s hand as they slipped from this life and into the next?  Birthed a child and felt the thin edges of God’s presence inside your being?  Beheld such beauty that it took your breath away?  Or been moved to tears by an image or a piece of music?  If so, you have stood at the edge of a thin place, a place where God and humanity meet in a mysterious way.  These moments open us to places of rawness and beauty.  Something seems to break open inside us, and words are inadequate to describe what we are experiencing.  We feel a sense of breakthrough as we break free of the ordinary and into the extraordinary.”  I think we all have had our moments of being in a thin place.

My thoughts:

·       This book had the perfect mix of Celtic tradition and wisdom, personal experience, and Christian philosophy. 

·       I would end my reading really thinking about the chapter I had just read and pair it with my personal experiences. 

·       Each chapter ended with a thoughtful page that helped you to put your thoughts together and reflect with a breaking open, breaking through, and breaking free discussion and reflection questions.  Breaking free usually also contained a Bible verse.

·       My Great Grandma was Irish, and I enjoyed the tidbits about Stanz’s native Ireland and her descriptions of Celtic traditions. 

·       As I have been doing lately, I read this as both a physical book and as an audiobook.  I listened to the audiobook while driving, but I also liked reviewing the chapter and favorite sections in the physical book.

·       It was fun when tidbits about Northeast Wisconsin were in the book as well.

·       I enjoyed the chapter on your “soul friend.”  I think everyone is a lucky person when you are able to find a “soul friend” in life.

·       I also in particular enjoyed the thoughtful chapter on prayer “Prayers change us, not God, for we are the ones in need of change.”

I feel like I am not doing this book justice, but it touched me deeply.  It also gave me a lot to reflect on and had great words of wisdom.  This will be a book that I will reread and take something new away each time.  It was the perfect book to read during the Lenten season.