Looking for the Thin Places

where heaven and earth meet

Have you ever been in a thin place?

It’s what early Christians called those rare spaces where heaven and earth seem to overlap—where God’s presence feels almost touchable. By contrast, a thick place is when that awareness gets smothered by hurry, fear, or noise.

Greece has long been known for such thin places, where the eternal and the earthly seem to breathe the same air. When Celtic believers said, “The veil between heaven and earth is thin,” they weren’t saying God moves in and out of places, of course, He’s everywhere, but that sometimes certain places, or even times of day, can wake us up to His omnipresence. In these places, or moments, eternity presses close and time loosens its grip just a little.

I love the imagery of early believers who used to say these are “places where the walls are weak.” Weak enough to almost feel another dimension on the other side. Some of these thin places are grand, like European cathedrals, or ancient monasteries, but they can also be quiet corners, worn by prayer and holy wonder.

So while in Mykonos, Michael and I went looking for one. We set out for The Church of Panagia Paraportiani, Our Lady of the Side Gate, built beside a medieval castle wall where the sea breaks against the stones. They started building this little church in 1425, but didn’t finish for centuries. (Maybe that’s what they mean by Greek time.) The church is a single whitewashed structure made up of five small chapels. It looks like it’s was designed by the wind and the rock more than an architect. It doesn’t have the grandeur of the Cistine Chapel or Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. It sits quietly where land meets sea, suspended between worlds. And a lot of people describe it as a thin place—a quiet threshold where the eternal is almost palpable.

People call it a thin place because of the centuries of prayer and devotion that filled it. It stands as a witness of God’s presence, weathered by wind and wonder.

On the way, we stumbled on this smaller chapel and decided to step inside. It could have seated maybe forty people if they squeezed in, but the moment we entered, we could feel the goodness of God. Maybe it was the centuries of worship, or maybe it was simply our hearts opening in a quiet room—but the air seemed to hum with holiness. We prayed, we sang softly, and we lingered. We didn’t want to go.

Leaving our little ‘retreat’, we wound down some more narrow pathways until we got to The Church of Panagia Paraportiani.

We’d actually walked by it the week before without noticing. Up close, it looked like uneven rubble washed in white paint. The door was padlocked. We touched the wall, took a few photos—and felt nothing. Just stones and salt air.

As we walked back toward the harbor, we talked about how some places pulse with presence and others, for reasons we’ll never quite name, feel utterly dead. Not quiet, not reverent, just hollow. Like faith drained out and never came back.

But when you stand before a sunset or a redwood or a tiny Greek chapel and stop long enough to be awed, the veil thins—and God’s presence runs straight through you.

For me, the thinnest places aren’t always far from home. They’re often by the window in my den, where time in His presence makes my ordinary life feel eternal. Maybe a thin place is just wherever you feel safe enough to be fully open to the wonder of God, to walk right into His courts with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to recognize the beauty of His love.

Those places are holy.

They let us push aside the weight of the world for a moment and stand, awestruck before the Father whose glory outshines even the most beautiful thing we can imagine.

And maybe that’s the point. Thin places aren’t meant to be chased or captured; they find us when our hearts are still enough to notice. When awe becomes our posture, every place can become thin.