When I think of my experiences giving birth to my two sons, I think of the Celtic Christian concept of thin places. Celtic Christians believed that there were certain physical locations where the boundaries between God and humans were much "thinner" and the chasm between the two more easily crossed. Donel McClellan writes,
These places speak of the junction of boundaries, of transitions from one state
into another. In a similar way, the Celts celebrated those places on their
calendar where one season met another. Their festival days were times when the
world we see and the unseen world seemed to be in close proximity.
Perhaps that is because of the heightened mental and physical state of the birthing mother. At certain points, I felt reduced to almost a primitive animal-like state, experiencing my body totally out of control and working on its own; heightened emotions that I can't describe -- not happiness, not fear, but certainly a feeling of terrible awe; and at the final moment of birth, a slowing down of time, followed by an exquisite but short-lived feeling of incredible, monumental relief.
Perhaps it is even more because of the transition of the newborn from being within and completely dependent upon another human being to being a person in his or her own right. Being present at this moment -- a new human being's very first moment of entry into this world of sorrow and joy -- is truly a holy and perhaps even sacramental experience.
In the same way, presence at the time of death can be holy. It is also a thin moment, when a human being leaves this state and enters into a new experience. My husband had the terrible gift of being present at his own father's bedside when he died earlier this year. I like to think that just as he helped me give birth to our sons, he helped his father as he was born into a new state of being.
