Love in Thin Places: Confessions of a Cathedral Chaplain

In Love in Thin Places, David Grieve, a chaplain at Durham Cathedral, invites us to join him as he walks around the greatest of the Northern cathedrals. In this building that has offered sanctuary, silence and space for prayer to many over the centuries, we meet not only saints like Cuthbert, Bede and Godric but are also confronted with the questions and concerns of today's pilgrims and visitors and not least the chaplain himself. The poems have been written over a period of thirty years, in some cases as a direct result of personal experiences or impressions received while at the Cathedral. The Cathedral is a Thin Place, where the distance between the close presence of God and the realities of life on earth seems to shorten. This is building with its many functions as a house of worship, music, art and other exhibitions, university graduations and all manner of events is itself a medium through which we can draw closer to God, speaking as it does of him.

About the Author :
David Grieve is an Anglican priest, married with three grown-up children, who retired in 1989 at the age of 37 due to a breakdown. He writes poetry as both therapy and vocation. Andrew Tremlett is the Dean of Durham. Previously he has served as a Canon Residentiary at Bristol Cathedral, Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey, Archdeacon of Westminster and Rector of St Margaret's Church, Westminster. He has also been Chaplain to the Mission to Seafarers, and a parliamentary research assistant for the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England.

Review :
Love in Thin Places is inspired by the particular and local glory of Durham Cathedral. However, the reader does not need to be as familiar as David Grieve with this remarkable house of God in the North-East, for these poems lead us along the inner journey into ‘thin places’ in our hearts as well as into Gothic architectures. These 54 ‘confessions’, as the author describes them, have been crafted and hammered out in the furnace of his own suffering, struggles and pain. … The form of these miniatures is most clearly discerned in the sounding out of the cadences and sentences – so here is a pocket-book crying out to be read aloud. There is nothing of easy-rhyming doggerel – there is plenty of that elsewhere. Here the two main resonances are the living stones of Durham and the phrases linked to familiar biblical images. But we need to listen carefully and hear with attentiveness – they are such ‘thin places’. In the author’s preface, David Grieve explains how he has been astounded and blessed ‘by this God-breathed building’, since it is in such thin places that the experience of God breaks through. David Grieve continues to find ‘surprises and delights almost each time’ he allows the building to speak to him, and where he finds himself ‘having to be still’ and capture his experience in the power and rhythm of poetry. Thin places have the capacity to inspire and to overpower. Within such places solace can be found. The power of this poetry is itself rich in metaphor and images. It invites the solitary reader to sit, to ponder, and to follow the poet into the thin place that captured his imagination. So what may rural cathedrals and greater churches learn from these confessions of a cathedral chaplain? The lesson is not to underestimate the power of thin places to let the experience of God into the human lives that wander into such territory. For some the encounter may be encouraged and nurtured by making available the space to sit and to reflect on David Grieve’s poetry. For others the encounter may be encouraged and nurtured by those cathedral chaplains who are so in tune with the power of thin places that their insights become infectious and open the eyes and souls of others to see what they see and to experience what they experience. Access to the heart of thin places through David Grieve’s poetry is enhanced by the careful production of Sacristy Press. For those of us familiar with Durham Cathedral this collection of poems is like visiting an old friend. For those who haven’t yet discovered that building, there is still much in this book that will speak to you. We get a glimpse of both special and ordinary moments in the Christian year. There are personal reflections on issues of the day as well as memories from the past. This is an enjoyable book that can help you to connect with God, a reminder that ‘God is, all of the time. God just is.’