Stepping into the Wind: Pentecost Revisited
NOTE: This post is submitted to *Jesus Manifesto, a revolutionary evangelical Christian website. They are hosting a contest called, Stepping into the Wind, a Pentecost Writing Contest.
*Christarchy! is a growing network of small groups for people who want to put the ethical teachings of Jesus into practice. Submergent is a network of leaders who, embracing the Anabaptist impulse, are living into the Kingdom of God in a postmodern, post-colonial, post-Christian world. Together, they are re-baptizing the Christian imagination!
It's the end of the world as we know it.
The cool thing is, every moment sings that refrain.
I'm thinking now of a name I once saw for a strategic planning committee.
'Pre-emptive destruction and renewal'.
What an amazing way to say that nothing should be held too closely to one's breast.
Nothing.
The Buddhist monks painstakingly, with great loving-kindness, make sand mandalas.
And when they are finished with these intricate works of art, destroy them, on purpose, with joy
like a breath of unexpected cooling wind on a blistering day.
How can we, who attempt to be followers of Christ and feel the insistent wind of the Spirit that calls us
Build with this same joyous abandon towards no particular ultimate outcome?
We tend to think linearly. The world was created. We sinned. The world will be destroyed.
Most others around the world, and many of us, secretly, think that maybe we've got time all wrong.
Maybe it is only circles. Created. Maintained. Destroyed. Amen. Created, and so on and so forth.
What would an awareness like that do?
Would it make us less evangelical to a way of thinking about the world?
Hegel said that we can see the universe as a 3 act play: thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis.
The synthesis then becomes the thesis, all over again.
What if the thesis is: God is love.
And the anti-thesis is: We don't really believe it.
And the synthesis is: We believe we stand alone on the precipice of falling into...what?
So, now the new thesis, just born this day, might be: Do we really stand alone on the precipice?
Pentecost is the acknowledgement that the old world has passed, and a new one dawns.
As we mature as a religion, will Christianity be able to see itself as only a blip on the heart-monitor of the universe?
No more, no less.
Christ gently tells us that we have nothing to fear. The Spirit whips us about, assisting to unhinge our stubborn, stinkin-thinkin.
What on earth was Joel referring to?
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.
A new heaven and a new earth.
I'll have one of those, please. Straight up, no lemon.
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
One of my favorite hats, among several is: initiated firekeeper in the Sacred Fire Community. Hosting a monthly community fire circle, I'm being taught that the simple act of sitting around a fire with the intent of holding open-hearted space makes for some soulful community!
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 20 years in end of life care and I currently work in the field of child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.