it's gonna be alright

 “The easiest way to think of a thin place is it’s those places, those moments, those people, those experiences that don't happen all the time. But it’s those moments when you get a sense like that old gospel song that says, “Over my head, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere.”  Those moments when you sense, “Wait a minute. God just touched me. Wait a minute.  Something beyond me is just happening here.  It’s those moments as Howard Thurman and folks used to talk about when time is intersected by eternity, when the human is touched by the Divine-- when God gets real.

It may be just momentary….I mean, you know Moses on Mount Sinai with the burning bush-- who knows how long he was on there. Was it two seconds? Hours? Days? The Bible doesn’t actually say.  Those moments are outside of time.” -Bishop Michael Curry’s conversation with Brene Brown on the Unlocking Us podcast from 9.30.20.

I listened to this podcast last week and then thought of it again this morning as I was reflecting about a thin place I experienced on Monday night.  It had been a long day and I was heading to pick up Taylor from a late night soccer practice at 9:30 p.m. As I got into the car, I just started to cry- not just for one thing- but a whole bunch of little things that had been piling up.  Sometimes emotions hit when least expected, and this was one of those moments.  It’s not even worth going into what the tears were about; there were just a number of big and small disappointments that felt heavy in the moment as this year has taken its toll in a number of ways for all of us with so much that is out of our control, and I had a moment alone in the car to let it all out. As I pulled up to the intersection at 15^th and 50^th, the light was red, and a man was walking across the crosswalk. I was the only one in the intersection and he must have looked in the window and seen me crying. He shouted out to me, “It’s gonna be alright. It’s gonna be alright.” And then, that made me cry a bit more because of the beautiful gift that was right in that moment in the midst of my ugly cry.  I’d never seen this man before and he did not know me from Adam (or Eve); but I took it as a gift as God got real in that thin place.

photo of intersection of 15th and 50th that I took today 

That night as I was falling asleep, the words to the song I learned over 29 years ago as a freshman at Stanford flooded my thoughts:

“It’s Alright” by the Basics: “Walking through the valley, all my troubles close at hand. I am just a pilgrim searching for the promised land. Devil’s on my tail- you know he’s dogged me all the way. Every time I lose him, he comes back another day. But it’s alright. It’s alright. You know I’m bound for glory. It’s alright. Wandering through the desert, seems like 40 years, don’t know where I’m going, when I started it was clear. Sun beats down upon me, hot sand burns my feet. Without that living water, I would perish from the heat. But it’s alright. It’s alright. You know I’m bound for glory. It’s alright. When the road is rock, when the wind begins to blow, seems I’ve journeyed so far, but there’s so far left to go. When I lose the heart to try, when I slip and fall, still I hear that gentle voice, still I hear that call. But it’s alright. It’s alright. You know I’m bound for glory. It’s alright.

Youtube link here of the song I uploaded so you can hear it playing from my old cassette tape. 

May these words be a gift to you today—it’s gonna be alright.

  

I dug up my old cassette tape from college days.....