‘Siskin’.
It’s a new word I learnt at the Greenbelt Festival this year: ‘Siskin’. Some words you like because of their sound, and some you don’t’. Maybe they look ugly or sound harsh. I liked the soft, simple but lively sound of ‘siskin’.
I wondered whether ‘siskin’ was a word, a thing, or whether it is just a name. Any keen birdwatchers among our readers will already know that it is a small yellowy-green bird like a greenfinch. It's like a kingfisher in that it's not easily spotted; siskins flit and dart.
‘Siskin Green’, was the name of the folk band which led the singing in Holy Communion at Greenbelt. They gave me my new word. Three Scots women playing banjo, guitar and percussion singing of faith and social justice. It is also the name of their latest album.** The cover is green - ‘Siskin green’ surely.
The band’s name is apt because in the Celtic tradition of Christianity, siskins are a symbol of hope and joy in dark times when faith faces adversity. Their flashing yellowy-green feathers speak of sunlight and movement, hope and courage, strength and positive energy when times are hard.
In Celtic Christianity there is an ancient tradition which also talks about finding God in ‘thinne places’. They need not be, usually are not, obviously religious places. By the sea. High in the hills. In a garden. In the howling gale or soft breeze. In the warmth of the sun. In the vastness of the night sky. ‘Thin places’ are anywhere a veil is momentarily drawn aside. A veil between the world as we understand it and the world as don’t understand it. A veil between our everyday world and a more real world beyond, where God is. A place of encounter. In thin places, we experience moments when things are not what they usually seem.
Dr Kendra Haloviak Valentine, a professor of New Testament at La Sierra University in California, has been accompanying us to some thin places this week as the Newbold community spent early evenings thinking about the Gospel of John. There are the thin places of a wedding party with the wine flowing and relationships inevitably about to change (ch 2). A bit of a disturbance and upset in a hallowed religious space (ch 2). A dark night when an old man wonders whether he has got it all wrong (ch 3). The stiflingly hot midday moment when woman goes about her daily routine to fetch water and gets more than she bargained for, a man who treats her seriously (ch 4). A disabled man confronting his somehow comfortable lack of agency (ch 5). People with empty stomachs (ch 6). A woman and her abusers (ch 8). A man who suddenly has the shock of seeing for the first time (ch 9). All life crises of some sort. All offering a moment of thinness.
Thin places are important for all of us. But don’t worry about finding them. They, like the siskin, will find you. Siskins offer hope and courage when life just seems too much.
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