The Slow Jam

There are some spaces spoken of in Celtic mysticism described as “thin places” – areas where the veil is particularly thin, where the distance between heaven and earth, the sacred and the everyday, seems to collapse. Places where one can more easily sense the divine or experience a deeper connection to something greater than ourselves.

Wayside’s op shops are thin places in their own right – spaces where the hurried world outside slows to a different rhythm. When you browse through racks of pre-loved clothing or shelves of forgotten treasures, you’re participating in something more gentle than shopping. There’s no algorithm pushing you towards a purchase, no targeted advertising telling you what you need. Just your hands moving through fabric, your eyes catching an unexpected colour or form, your imagination sparked by someone else’s once-cherished possession.

In that unhurried wandering between the racks, conversations happen naturally – with volunteers, with other shoppers, with yourself. You might come in looking for a winter coat and leave with a long-lost CD and a story from someone who remembered when they first heard the album. (Wow, remember whole albums?) That’s the gift of browsing: it creates space for serendipity, for discovering not what you thought you wanted, but what was actually waiting for you all along. In a world that demands we know exactly what we’re after and get it as quickly as possible, our op shops offer something quietly radical – permission to slow down, to notice, to let life surprise you. Everyone is treated the same in this place, all united in the pursuit of style and soulfulness. “Dwelling” is a word that has fallen out of use, but it’s an apt descriptor of what happens here.

What you might not know is that out the back we have a team unpacking bag after bag of donations, sorting through clothes. What looks to the average punter like a bag of cast-offs is to them an opportunity to uncover treasure. They mirror the work next door at our community centres, where many fall in feeling like cast-offs themselves, and are met with a smile and an army of lovers who work slowly with them to uncover their potential – in the hope that enough healing can happen that they may believe it themselves one day. To be a fly on the wall would be an honour, for the conversations that flow in that place are a river of life-affirmations. Just this morning, someone came in a little flustered, “Sorry, I have to return these five items, I forgot to pay for them and then remembered that last time, you let me know that if I ever want something and don’t have the money, to just ask first…”

The person behind the checkout desk smiled, thanked them for their integrity, and together they sorted it out. No shame, no judgment – just two people recognising each other’s humanity across the counter. In that moment, the op shop became what it was always meant to be – not just a place of transaction, but of transformation. A space where honesty is met with grace, where asking is always better than taking, and where trust is built one small interaction at a time.

This is the work, isn’t it? Creating spaces thin enough that heaven might break through in the everyday – in a rack of second-hand jumpers, in a conversation over a forgotten CD, in the simple act of coming back to make something right. Our op shops aren’t just retail spaces. They’re practice grounds for a different way of being in the world.

Thank you for being part of the Inner Circle,