"A Candle Of Hope In November's Dark Night"

I get out and see a lot of things, and like a lot of people of an advanced age (ahem)I have had a range of life experiences.
I've watched a brand new life take it's very first breath on earth and held the hand of a life at end as it breathed it's last.
These are the two extremes of life as we know it.
Both were immeasurable in the immensity of the moment, and in the very privilege of being present.

There are times in life that you feel as if your heart has exploded and in it's tattered place beats an emotion so extreme it envelopes your entire soul.
This is not an unfamiliar feeling to me - despite my claims to the contrary and my desire to be otherwise, I am a person who feels things immensely. I don't do feelings in small measure.
I have felt overwhelmed with joy upon turning a corner and seeing the sun bursting through the trees ahead.
I have been overcome with happiness watching an air show with my kids because the moment recalled a similar moment shared with my Dad in my childhood.
I have been torn apart by anger when someone I love has been hurt or wronged.
I have been overwrought with sadness when I couldn't take away the pain of someone who suffered.

We have all felt these emotions. We have all felt these and many others so strongly that the feelings overtake us and the moment becomes something bigger than us ourselves, little humans on a small planet in a mediocre solar system in the vast unknown of the universe.

I have heard this referred to as a "thin space" by a wonderful and wise minister, during a particularly meaningful sermon he once preached.
This expression has stuck with me as a description for this amazing and terrifying feeling.

When had such a feeling recently I, ever research minded, decided to google that shit.

A "thin place" is described in Celtic lore as " a place where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. A place where we can sense the divine more readily".

I read several sources, that state various similar descriptions, often touting the boundaries of life and death, where people experience the "Divine" (insert your belief in whatever Deity you deem fit) most strongly. Either in an earthly place, or through human experience.

The advent season, in Christian traditions, is a period defined by waiting and preparing. Preparing for the miraculous and wondrous arrival of that most human of emotions. This, my friends, is why Christmas is so infinitely beautiful. It is the ultimate thin space. At heart, we celebrate the human ability to nurture,to love and to HOPE.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow or next year. But in those quiet moments of overwhelming feels, I know that the people I love are with me.
I know that the warm brush of sunlight that randomly brought a lump to my throat and made my heart swell means I am not alone. I know that when I see a friend suffer and feel the crushing anvil of defeat in my inability to save them, it means I am not alone. Don't push the moment away, however painful it may be. Stand on the edge of your own divinity and live.

Find Your CORE.