Tag: Spirit wind

Languages, Maren Tirabassi, Pentecost, Poetry, Spirit wind, Tongues of Flame, wind, Wind and flame

Pentecost!

Revkathy


As the Sunday of Pentecost nears, please contemplate the message of this wonderful poem by my friend, Maren C. Tirabassi, posted on her blog, Gifts in Open Hands.

Pentecost Poem, 2021

Not this year,
the images that have nurtured me before

Don’t get me wrong! I’ve loved
the blowing wind,
but deadly storms of climate change
have taken the air out of that one.

Wordcloud by Kathy Manis Findley

Tongues of flame remind me too much
of cremation in India and Nepal.

Certainly even reading about
the crowded streets
sends me digging in my pocket
for a mask,
in these tentative,
emotionally so complicated
days of re-community.

This year it is the languages
that … speak to me, in me, through me

not even so much celebrating
the holy, beautiful syllabification
of global diversity,
or the most successful sermon ever
giving birth to a church,

as one hundred twenty people
being willing to speak
without being in control of their words.

We all have learned this –
how we said the right thing at the right time
buried in ordinary conversation,or a small public courage
of naming truth we didn’t know we knew.

This year my simple pentecost
is just lending my tongue to something
someone needs to hear,

because I am waiting in the right place,
and willing to open my mouth.

Read more of Maren’s writing at this link:
https://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/pentecost-poem-2021/#comment-10406

Amanda Gorman, God's presence, Hope, Spirit wind, Spiritual and emotional darkness

Just Hope

Revkathy

I just read a powerful quote by poet extraordinaire, Amanda Gorman, in an interview published in Time Magazine. In the article, Michelle Obama interviews Amanda Gorman.

Optimism shouldn’t be seen as opposed to pessimism, but in conversation with it. Your optimism will never be as powerful as it is in that exact moment when you want to give it up. The way we can all be hopeful is to not negate the feelings of fear or doubt, but to ask: What led to this darkness? And what can lead us out of the shadows?

More than anything else, her words are about hope, just hope. We throw the word “hope” around quite often, hoping for this thing and then that thing. But that’s just hope, not necessarily real hope. Real hope is a hope that looks beyond the present moment, hope that is the glow from your soul, hope that is an abiding thing that is hidden in your soul.

The last thing I want to do today is give you all the definitions of hope I can find on the internet. In fact, if you wanted to, you could find hundreds of good quotes about hope on the internet, maybe even thousands. Like these:

Quotes and definitions may be popular, even relevant at times, but what I have desperately needed in my darkest moments was not a new definition of hope or even a lovely quote written on a picture of clouds. What I needed in my personal dark nights of terror was the kind of hope that had the gentle power to heal the deepest recesses of soul and to lift my spirit to the brilliant light that is never fully gone.

Just hope? Oh, no! Not just hope, but the abiding, living hope we know as the constant presence of God and the wings of Spirit breath. For this hope, thanks be to God.

As a gift to you on this day, I offer a video of Amanda Gorman presenting her hope-filled poem, “The Hill We Climb.” I know I previously sent a video of her presenting her poem at the Inauguration, but this video is worth watching. Find it HERE.

Change, God's presence, Holy Spirit, Inspiration, Pentecost, Quiet, Rebirth, Repair the world, Sacred Space, Silence, wind

Who Has Seen the Wind?

Revkathy

5D279BA7-5431-4872-93DC-BDF5BFA11178

. . . And the wind? Ah, who has seen the wind go by? Neither you nor I. But when we see the trees bow down their heads, we know the wind is passing by. That is the way the Holy Spirit works: silently and effectively. *

There was never a more needful time for the fresh winds of the Holy Spirit. We inhabit a world divided . . . nations divided by tenuous agreements; white people divided from brothers and sisters black and brown; people of faith divided by differing traditions; immigrants divided from those who claim to “own” this nation; citizens divided from their president; politicians divided by ideology, greed and self-interest. There are so many examples of division. And whether we will admit it or not, division diminishes us.

The divisions among us — the ones we personally experience and the ones we observe — create an unsettled environment around us and an unsettled spirit within us. The acrimony, the hate and the disrespect we witness all around creates an unrest in us. Perhaps, from the weariness of the constant hostility we see, our heart becomes hardened. Perhaps we are closed off from the Spirit Wind that fills us and creates in us rebirth, fresh and new.

We can never think of wind without recalling the day of Pentecost. The disciples of Jesus and other followers were gathered together when a rushing, mighty wind filled the entire house, and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. (Acts 2:1-4) That day was the beginning, and from that day when Spirit Wind came, the holy promise came into view: that God would pour out the Spirit on all people, that sons and daughters would prophesy, that some would have visions and others dreams.

We need it again, the Spirit Wind. We need it to fill us with courage for the living of these days. We need it to fill us with love that can change the world. We need it for the will to save our planet from devastating climate change. We need it to responsibly open our borders, to become again a nation of welcome, to reach out our hands to sojourners searching for safe refuge, to rescue children from the unwelcoming places where they are detained and kept from their parents. We need it to repair the world in all the ways possible to us, to repair its brokenness.

To become God’s people in a broken world, we need the wind of the Spirit. Now.

But how does Spirit Wind come in these days? I have heard of no “Pentecostal” experiences of rushing mighty wind. I have heard of no one who has seen a sudden whirlwind. (1 Kings 19:11)  I do not know of a person who saw the winds cease at the command, “Peace. Be still.” (Mark 4:39)

So how does the Spirit Wind come? I can share only what I know from my own experience, and that is this: when I am very still and very present with God, the Spirit comes quietly, gently — but surely. I do not see her. I do not hear her come with any sound of rushing wind. I cannot touch her. Yet I feel her, covering me, filling me, empowering me. I go away with that sense of being reborn and renewed, like I might be “born from above.”

2CE74B96-9488-4F0B-81B2-69824F5EAEC8
Art by Charlotte Nickel, “Mighty Rushing Wind,” acrylic on canvas.

You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.

— John 3:8 (The Message Bible)

 

*From the Carmelite Bulletin, Carmel of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Little Rock, Arkansas, “Who Has Seen the Wind?” Christina Rossetti – 1830-1894

 

*******************************************************

On another note . . .

Please pray for me as I await a life-saving kidney transplant. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often feels so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

 

 

Holy Spirit, Pentecost

Wind and Flame

Revkathy

2E00E9CE-6DD5-449C-A11E-A0C9B7874B61Pentecost Sunday! I won’t let it pass without giving thanks for the Spirit-wind that rushes through my life. In and out, at times a gentle breeze, at times a rushing, mighty wind. I enjoy a windswept life, always able to count on the wind of the Spirit to move me where I need to be.

The Holy Spirit, though, comes in other forms. How it comforts me to experience the Holy Spirit as a descending dove, peaceful, gentle, bringing the accepting voice of God as it did in the story of the baptism of Jesus.

At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”   (Mark 1: 9-11)

I do experience that kind of Holy Spirit — the descent upon me of a gentle peace, a comforting presence that declares, “You are my beloved daughter.” What an uplifting experience that affirms who I am. I need the Holy Spirit who whispers to me, “You are enough.”

Still, the rushing, mighty Spirit-wind is what I long for. It’s what I hope for. I wait expectantly, full of faith that I will know beyond a doubt the very moment that the Holy Spirit comes upon me. 

Like the wind that appeared on the Day of Pentecost, the wind of the Spirit breathes life into me, again and again. 

When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1-4)

After this, in a time of confusion over what had happened and the claim that the people were drunk with wine, Peter stood up, lifted his voice, and preached a sermon.

 . . . this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

 And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:16-18)

My how we love the Spirit’s wind. But something else appeared on the Day of Pentecost. Fire! The Holy Spirit as flame can be shocking. It can be fierce and unbridled, the power of fire, the incinerating blaze — all-consuming, refining —a force that can destroy in an instant. 

Can I be grateful, also, for the presence of Spirit fire in my life? Is it Spirit fire that gives me tenacity? Is it Spirit fire that refines me with flame that, even when reduced to ashes, I miraculously emerge alive, completely changed, with a heart rekindled and a soul ablaze for God’s greatest use?

One of the most moving hymns for Pentecost was written in 1983 by Thomas H. Troeger.

Wind who makes all winds that blow—
    gusts that bend the saplings low,
    gales that heave the sea in waves,
    stirrings in the mind’s deep caves—
aim your breath with steady power
    on your church, this day, this hour.
Raise, renew the life we’ve lost,
Spirit God of Pentecost.

Fire who fuels all fires that burn—
    suns around which planets turn,
    beacons marking reefs and shoals,
    shining truth to guide our souls—
come to us as once you came;
    burst in tongues of sacred flame!
Light and Power, Might and Strength,
fill your church, its breadth and length.

Holy Spirit, Wind and Flame,
    move within our mortal frame.
Make our hearts an altar pyre.
Kindle them with your own fire.
Breathe and blow upon that blaze
    till our lives, our deeds, and ways 
    speak that tongue which every land 
    by your grace shall understand. 

I dare not add a single word of commentary to the sacred message of that hymn, but this is my sincerest prayer:

 . . . Come to us as once you came; burst in tongues of sacred flame!
Light and Power, Might and Strength, fill your church, its breadth and length.

Amen.