John C. Morgan 
Thin Places 

When he was asked to summarize his philosophy, Plato reportedly said: ‘Practice dying, ‘ which seems a rather strange, even morbid, comment until one realizes that every life consists of passages, some smooth and some not. Within these passages are what John Morgan calls ‘thin places.’ On a trip to Wales, Morgan discovered that the term ‘thin places’ is part of Celtic culture. Thin places are those places where the eternal and the temporal touch, if only for a brief glimpse; where you know that life is more than just the obvious. Thin places can be of great beauty, where life’s meaning breaks through by the ocean or in the mountains; but thin places can also arise in the life of every person, whether with the birth of a child or the death of a family member. John Morgan believes that being fully awake to such times and places holds a clue to living more deeply and with greater wisdom about what’s really important. His poems express this understanding.

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John C. Morgan is a writer who happens to teach or a teacher who happens to write, and sometimes both at the same time. He loves teaching because the audience sits in front of him or in a circle, which is more common in his college philosophy classes. He has been writing since the fourth grade when a teacher took pity on him because he had troubles adapting when he moved from an experimental school in the city to a more traditional suburban school. She convinced him his stories were great and funny and should be shared with the rest of the class. Perhaps this explains why to this day he is not sure if he is a writer or teacher. He has been a journalist, teacher, community organizer, and minister over his seventy-six plus years of life. And he has written and published eight books, many articles, and not a few newspaper columns. His most recent book, Resisting Tyranny (Resource, 2018), is about his ancestor, Matthew Lyon, thrown into jail in 1798 for criticizing then President John Adams. He holds three graduate degrees in philosophy, ethics, and religious history. He lives now with his wife and three cats in a small town an hour from Philadelphia. He has three grown children and two grandchildren (also grown).