Moments, as if pausing mid-step, when ordinary meaning in life takes on a sense of something greater, imbuing life with higher meaning, purpose and direction. I don’t know how else to describe it except to say it’s as if the atmosphere thins a bit. The boundary between the Greater Reality and the ordinary seems thinner. My ears are pricking, as if being commanded from … where? … to listen. Perhaps you have had such experiences?

Another person describes it as “the universe is talking to me.” That person is someone who is seeking a greater life-meaning by finding the spiritual in the mundane, who knows any language used to describe this sense of transparency fraught with meaning can only approximate whatever the reality truly is.

That person who senses the universe at large has something to say to him in particular speaks of hearing the muttering of the lunatic on the bus and noticing Good Orderly Direction somehow shining through. Sometimes, not all the time, could the universe have something for you that you need to know? What would it take to get your attention? To put your ears on alert with the question, “What was that? What do I need to know about that?”

That “universe is talking to me” person sent a photo. The photo of a certain place, just when I’d been holding up that very city in my mind as a question. Beyond the simple coincidence, “Oh, I was just thinking of that city!” were other striking resonances in not only my life but the photographer’s life as well. Impossible to dissect, but impossible to forget. To listen for what the universe is saying is to become aware of the flags, and then to wait for what they signify.

Sometimes great insights require long contemplation.

These thin moments. They seem to occur when there is a concentration of the people of the New Message. They all sense it, too (some more than others). Are we so suggestible, or is it real? Signs are not always what you make of them. Do we feel it now, as we collectively anticipate a moment in time that we recognize is a pivot in history. Everything coming before this upcoming weekend, and everything that follows, those are two completely different worlds. Who senses this?

Everyone who is preparing, that’s who. It is a pilgrimage called the Encampment of the New Message from God. Watch this space for more about how surprisingly redemptive is the preparation for this gathering and more about what I mean by thin times and thin places.

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