Pentecost Sunday

This past Sunday, the Church celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit to the apostles. We know this feast as Pentecost Sunday. The significance of this event is great in the life of our Church. The apostles, consumed with the Spirit, left the safety and isolation of their upper room and began the process of building the Church on earth.

To reflect on this coming and its impact in our lives, I'm reposting a meditation that I wrote about a year ago. Be filled with the Spirit!

The wind is howling today. I fear for the big old maple that stands out in the yard. It bends and twists with each gust like it might lift its roots and stumble down the street. The leaves dance and the branches sway in a kind of practiced rhythm. Their movements seem choreographed yet frantic at the same time. I am swept into wind’s music that builds strong crescendos then softens only to pick up strong again. It takes my breath away and sits me on the edge of my seat with nervous anticipation. I feel it inside.

It must have been like this for the apostles in the upper room. I imagine them breathless and uneasy as the Spirit swept through the space and lit them afire. The Spirit turns everything on its head just like the wind sending all the loose pieces of life tumbling out of sight.

Wind makes everyone, even the animals jumpy—and so does the Spirit. In Scripture, the Spirit is the agitator, not the comforter. Wouldn’t the apostles have had an easier time sitting in prayer and reflection with the doors shut and windows closed? But Spirit flipped up the shades and pushed them out the door into the messy, windy world.

I think that’s how it is for us, too. Just when things get too comfortable, the Spirit blows through us and stirs up a storm. We may prefer to close the windows and sit in the silence, but it’s in that howling, swirling wind that we find our set ways twisted into creative motion and new possibilities. There is a time to glory in the stillness, but we only know stillness after the wind has calmed. Spirit bends us and we sway, but that movement gives us cause to plant our roots more firmly. So today I thank God for the restless windy places inside me. I lift my face and take long deep breaths letting Spirit settle where it likes. I feel its rhythm and am ready to dance.