To dwell in a space means, I think, to combine a spiritual relationship with a spatial one.
“Space” is a concept that has been omni-present for us over the past four months, because in August we sealed our lives up in reinforced cardboard, loaded kit and caboodle, and traded old space for new.
After living nowhere but New England since forever, I and mine find ourselves transplanted to suburban Philadelphia, amid spaces where Welsh spellings defy heroic attempts at decipherization (if there is such a word), much less pronunciation.
Bryn Mawr (“brin mar”: or “great hill”), for example, is downright straightforward compared to Bala Cynwyd.
(Bala Cynwyd’s translation, like its spelling, is convoluted in the extreme. My theory is that the name of the place was dreamed up by an inebriated black belt in tongue yoga.)
How and why we came to change spaces is a story for another day.
Suffice to say, however, that we are happily situated, despite the fact that we still lisp or spit, endeavoring to enunciate the names of some of the local villages.
And in general, we, like most people, rank “moving” right down there with root canals on the Fantastically Fun Pastimes List.
Still, relocation has its positive aspects, encounters with “thin spaces” being one of them.
To explain: Since slicing open boxes and finding doorknobs packed together with one’s double boiler (yes, really) is an exercise requiring a limited expenditure of mental energy, in the act of unpacking, you can and do find yourself considering space in new ways.
Certainly, you can deliberate for ages as to where, precisely, to locate Aunt Dorothy’s tea service. But far more importantly, you find yourself wrestling with ideas about precisely what certain space around you can mean.
To dwell in a space, (which is to say, centering your being there, as opposed to utilizing home as simply a crash pad) means, I think, to combine a spiritual relationship with a spatial one.
The Celts defined “thin spaces” as those confluences of time and space in which we can catch a glimpse of—call it what you will—perhaps, the Infinite.
Thin spaces might be akin to what Thoreau experienced at Walden (in a space he built measuring merely 10 by fifteen feet).
Thin spaces might be something like biblical accounts of mortals sensing a Presence they called God.
If I read the idea correctly, these spaces are said to be “thin” because for brief moments, the barriers between “here” and “there” are less like a wall, and more like a curtain of gauze that allows us to see Something Else at least dimly, if not face to face.
I admit, few if any of these musings would be the stuff of “House Hunters,” or “Curb Appeal” or “Divine Design,” or any other cable show purporting to demonstrate the quintessential must-have kitchen, or the ways and means of engendering a raging case of house envy among one’s friends.
What entertaining the possibility—and it is only that: a possibility—of “thin spaces” does accomplish, however, might be the idea that Winston Churchill noted: First we shape our dwellings, and then, rather magically and imperceptibly, our dwellings shape us.
It’s intriguing, and worth considering: the idea that spaces—be they homes, or specifically designated houses of worship, or simply the created world—can be “thin,” allowing us to glimpse some bit of what may be beyond our immediate realities.
Even more intriguing is the idea that it just may be that in such home-y, or homely spaces, the Infinite resides: waiting for us to wake up and get it: Abundant possibilities; possibilities that are abundant.
Eyes to see and ears to hear, if you will.
Meanwhile, where on earth are my grandmother’s butter knives?
Trish Bennett is the former associate editor of the Main Street News. Her award-winning column, “Between Us,” ran in that paper for many years. She holds a master of science degree in journalism and now lives in Bryn Mawr, Pa., where she currently works at an inner-city elementary school in West Philadelphia with disadvantaged kids as a “library lady” and reading specialist. She can be reached at [email protected]