On the edge, where Columbus and Chicago Avenues meet in Minneapolis, a familiar sign is plunged past concrete, into layers of soil. The background is a deep red, like blood. The letters on the sign are white and centered. Stop, it said, and cars and bikes and pedestrians did. When I came near the sign, I noticed it was different. Stop, it said. Yet, underneath this word a sheet of white typing paper was attached at its edges with electric tape. On the paper were the words, …killing us. A block over from where I stood, George Floyd was murdered by a policeman just days before. The officer’s knee rested on George’s neck, even as George cried, “I can’t breathe,” and the crowd pleaded with the office to stop, to no avail. Stop killing us.

I stood at the sign disoriented. With each step I took toward flowers and cards and pictures drawn on construction paper with crayons and markers by those still learning their letters and words, every glance of George’s face spray painted on boarded windows and imprinted on t-shirts, I realized I had entered a different space. In my white privilege, I do not worry about being killed by police. I do not worry about undue treatment because of the color of my skin or the language I speak or my sexual orientation or my socioeconomic status. I do not worry about what I wear or what I eat because of my gender. The color of my skin affords me the benefit of the doubt, no matter what. And yet, I stepped into a community of people whose bodies are subject to forms of judgement and prejudice and abuse, even death, that I cannot even begin to understand because these things are reserved for people whose skin and experience is different from my own. In the face of these realities, I realized I stood on the edge, in-between, in a thin place.

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In her debut, Thin Places: Essays from In Between, Jordan Kisner orients readers to thin places at their edges, in the space that is “in between.” Thin places, Kisner will remind those who plumb the depths of this collection, occur when “the barrier between the physical world and the spiritual world wears thin and becomes porous.” If thin places sound at all mystical, it’s no doubt due to their Celtic origins. If thin places sound constricted, readers will be pleasantly surprised by Kisner’s craft. As a theologian, I was heartened to see Kisner draw on the works of the likes of Michel Foucault, Søren Kierkegaard, and Simone Weil. As a writer, I was grateful for Kisner’s engagement with Susan Sontag. As an essayist, I drew near to the ways Kisner had been influenced by Maggie Nelson and Eula Biss. As a poet, I was glad to hear echoes from the work of Christian Wiman, Marie Howe, Kay Ryan and Mark Doty.

These names may feel as though I’m taking a particular kind of attendance, and maybe I am. For with these sources, Kisner begins to reveal less concern for certainty, for one side over the other. Instead, Kisner holds space for the tension at the center, leaving room for both possibilities of any equation to stand. Further, in this collection, Kisner evinces writing artfully at the edges, with and for voices that have otherwise been discounted and silenced. As a part of holding space for tension in these essays, Kisner opens space to reveal trauma and grace – both of which exist not on either side of any equation, but in the in between, in open or hybrid spaces. In a time of racial tension and other kinds of division, the presence of poetry makes space for pain to express itself and to find beauty and healing in the in between of it all. No one voice can contain the fullness of expression; each voice adds dimension and depth to what lies in between.

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Kisner holds a compelling tension in her writing, making space for both the reality of the world and for reflection on our experience of the world in a way that feels like a conversation, that invites us in to sit a spell and listen to one another – and to honor the space between us. In these essays, conversations about God, mental health, and racial and sexual identity seem not dividing, but possible, even if our conversation partners hold vastly different perspectives than do we. And maybe, Kisner’s essays teach us to pay attention to the other, and to realize what happens in between us in those conversations is important. Conversations like these can be difficult; at the same time, it seems Kisner makes room, not only for their possibility, but also for their transformative effect. Or, maybe readers will make room for the possibility that Kisner’s essays could teach us this. What lies in the in between in our conversations with one another is neither dogma nor doctrine, but only our stories. In this way, Kisner gives us permission to tell our stories, and listen to those of others.

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In the closing pages of her collection, toward the end of the essay “Backward Miracle,” Kisner writes, “…sometimes language can just hold what is.” If this is true – and I believe it is – then these essays teach us how our language, our stories carry us. Our stories – and those of others – matter. Our language and our stories make, and maybe even remake us who we are, whatever thin place lies in between.

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Long before the murder of George Floyd, our Haitian-born and adopted five-year-old daughter used to say about herself, My black is beautiful. On the day George Floyd’s lifeless body appeared on TV under the weight of a knee, she saw his image and began to rub the skin on her forearm. My black isn’t beautiful. My black isn’t beautiful. Though we have assured her often that her black is beautiful, what she saw on the TV raises questions for her our assurances can’t and shouldn’t erase. This is a thin place, one around whose table we will sit together and talk about her identity. We will say his name: George Floyd. We will make room at the table to invite others to join us in conversation. We will hold space for the tension. In between all of this, we will listen.

You can purchase Thin Places: Essays from In Between on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Macmillian Publishers, and elsewhere.

– Paul Lutter