Thin Places: Portraits, Prayers, and Liminal Grace

By: Arthur Thomas Lee

between the lines on any stranger’s face,

countless love stories needing to be told…

There is, across the globe, an ever-growing disconnect. People everywhere are divided by borders and boundaries and walls—if not geographically, then certainly as they pertain to our convictions and the untamed country that is the human heart. Among so much dissonance, how attainable then is harmony? And where, at last, is it to be found?

In his debut collection of interconnected personal essays and poetry, Arthur Thomas Lee introduces us to myriads of individuals not unlike ourselves, people whose stories hold, between their lines, keys to greater compassion and understanding. To that end, Thin Places: Portraits, Prayers, and Liminal Grace takes us on a lyrical journey through which nature becomes our ever-present guide, difference gives way to deference, patchwork paths find purpose, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and each stranger—fighting for light in the thick of understory—transforms into familiar lifelong companion. It is, at once, a heart-felt prayer, a bold beck and call for love in the face of deep division, and for greater measures of grace along the way—all while passing our time, our limited time, on this our liminal planet.

“Lee masterfully connects the ordinary to the extraordinary. Thin Places is a compelling collection of essays and poems that invites the reader to slow down and observe the profound truths and the fascinating people hiding in plain sight." “A celebration of strangers. No encounter, and no individual is too insignificant to escape notice. Each reflects the richness of the human experience.” –Midwest Book Review