So, what would entice two relatively sane(ish) women who had never met before to fly halfway around the world and spend eight days trapped in a car that was smaller than my trunk? By this time in our lives we should be more settled and sensible, right? Well, there is mature and there is moribund. The latter is a disease I dread worse than cancer. My driving might kill us, but not lack of spirit!
I had been to Ireland once before. My adventures involved the same Frommer’s map that Joanna clung to so desperately, an even smaller rental car, Galway Bay, a castle ruins, a bull, and a perfume called Innis. I left with a deep impression of the spirituality of the land and a greater understanding of how not to use The Adapter when plugging in cell phones. I knew I wanted to go back someday. That was ten years ago, but the day finally came.
It was a friend of mine who connected me with Joanna. He suggested that I call her up and see if she wanted to go with me. She was a big spirited person, free, and adventurous. No disease in her, no sir! So, I called her up one day and said, “Hi, my name is Megan. Do you want to go to Ireland with me?” and “Oh, and by the way, nice to meet you!”
Just for kicks, I shared with her why I was going.
The first reason was to look for thin places. It is quite amusing to read people’s blogs as they try to describe a special place where we were meant to meet God by using any other language but His name. They will say a sense of the “eternal”, or an “existential experience”, or “stepping outside of time”, or “everything slows down and you feel how small you are”, and so on. It makes me want to sit next to them and say, “you’re getting warm, warm, warmer, oh, cold! colder …” until they can’t take it any longer and ask me “WHAT!??!” Then I would tell them. God made these places where the veil between heaven and earth is thinner so that we could go there and experience HIM, so just call it what it is and admit that you long for it because we ALL have a void in our spirits that only He can fill. No disease in me either, no sir!
How does one find a thin place, you may ask. Well, that is where it gets a bit tricky. There are all the “official” thin places that are talked about in people’s blogs. Many of them involve the famous Irish stone circles that dot the landscape. But I am not convinced that the “official” program is the most powerful one. On my first trip I went to an abbey that was supposed to afford a profound experience. It was good, but no special sparks for me. Then my eye caught a pile of rubble next door, and THAT was something. Turned out to be the ruins of a castle and I had a huge God encounter there, and incidentally, an encounter with the bull who apparently owned the castle. It just goes to show you never know. So, our program was a mixture of “this is a spot”, and “this might be a spot” and “we have no idea if there is any spot here but we are going to check anyway”.
We are also both treasure hunters. Not the gold coins and precious gems kind of treasure hunters. We are after the real stuff. We are after the treasures that God placed in the land – spiritual deposits that are for us to receive and steward. We knew that we might find the goods buried under centuries of pagan worship and who knows what manner of human stupidity, but that was part of the adventure. Finding God’s fingerprints STILL there underneath the mess. We were up for the challenge. Watch out Indiana Jones.
As for the third reason, well, maybe Joanna didn’t quite realize what she had signed up for. She agreed to get in a car driven by a whimsical, fantastical loving, creative, ethereal Mercy with a tendency to disappear into a whole different universe.
“Ohhh, look, Joanna, doesn’t that huge tree look like it could be a doorway into another world?”
“Megaaaaaan!!! Watch out for that bus, the bus, the BUS!”
I love Ireland. I understand why they believe in fairies. The forests and the landscapes beckon you with promises of such encounters with another world. The Celtic soul cultivates it. I wasn’t looking for fairies, but I was definitely looking for encounters with the God of all worlds and dimensions, and a visible glimpse behind the veil would be better still. I longed to sharpen my discernment of the spiritual realm, to deepen my connection to the nature God created, and if there WAS a doorway in that tree, I was walking through it.
We were there, we were all in, and it was time to hit the road!